#978: Caffeine, Crucifixes and Cleavage

Over the past 96 hours - the time since Joseph R. Biden concluded his 3rd - and by all measures best - State of the Union (SOTU) of his presidency, things have been going pretty damn well for the Democrats. For not only did Biden receive nearly universal applause for his barnburner of a speech; he all but erased the nasty nickname “Sleepy Joe” from the airwaves. Those on the other side of the political aisle who have long portrayed him as a doddering octogenarian likely suffering from pre-senile dementia, are now accusing him of having been “over caffeinated” during his historic address. Even Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, long accustomed to trashing “Uncle Joe” with such front-page headlines as Where’s Joe?, He Said What?,  Biden’s Secret Emails, and Glazed and Confused, were forced to damn him with faint praise with the two-word headline He’s Alive!”  Of course, in smaller print the front page article says “Bitter exchanges over border,” and “Tax raid on the rich.”  Sometimes you just can’t win for losing.

Within 24 hours of giving his SOTU address, the Biden campaign raised more than $10 million in donations from more than 116,000 supporters.  Compare this to the Trump campaign/Republican National Committee, which is, as the saying goes, “Down on its uppers.” Most of their cash is going to pay for their boss’s legal bills. The very next day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economy added upwards of 275,000 new jobs in February, easily besting the Wall street Journal ‘s 200,000 prediction.

Does this mean that the MAGAites are going to stop accusing the President of being a doddering codger? Of course not; I’m sure they’ve already put together a edited version of Biden’s SOTU showing nothing but his rhetorical stumbles and coughs. The only thing they have to worry about is that the Dems also have their own edited takes on all times the “Predecessor” has stomped on his tongue or lapsed into incomprehensible Klingon-speak over just the past week. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander . . . but not so good for Democracy. Would the MAGA cultists on Capitol Hill give Joe Biden at least a couple of days off from their normal stridency? Of course not; as I write this, CSPAN is broadcasting a hearing on why Biden should be impeached for hiding secret documents.

But let’s go back to last Thursday night; what happened within minutes after President Biden’s resounding peroration: the rebuttal by 1st-term Alabama Senator Katie Britt. And what a tone-deaf address it was. She wasn’t as bad as then Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal when he gave the rebuttal back in 2009; she was far, far worse. She wasn’t as much of an amateurish joke as Florida Senator Marco “Water Bottle” Rubio in 2015; her appearance and deliverance (not to mention the June Cleaver kitchen mise en scène) were far too bizarre to be a mere joke. Even Arkansas Senator Sarah Huckabee Sanders did a better job last year . . . sticking almost exclusively to how President Biden and the Democrats were nothing more than tools of left-wing “woke” culture. Jindal Rubio, Huckabee Sanders and now Britt all came in with high expectations; their rebuttals were tryouts for future positions in future Republican administrations. All failed the test; none will ever be POTUS or even VPOTUS.

Britt’s response was so out-there that even as she was speaking, bloggers and podcasters were asking who would portray her on the next Saturday Night Live.  Tom Nichols, (@RadioFreeTom) posted at 11:01 that night, There is no way that this Katie Britt address does not end up as part of the SNL cold open.  Within minutes his comment had gone viral.  The View’s cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin, referring to what she called Britt's ASMR freakiness called it "a disaster from start to finish," pointing out the bad optics of the senator choosing to film her speech in a kitchen — just in time for International Women’s Day. Not to be outdone, Joy Behar put in her own two cents: "Get some medication, Katie. I haven’t seen acting that bad since my wedding night," she joked. "So, which genius in that party decided that she was the perfect spokesperson? I’ve never seen mood swings like this. One minute she’s like [sobbing noise], then she’s like gonna take a knife and stab you. Then she’s laughing like an idiot. What is wrong with her? She’s like Sybil . . . the girl needs mood elevators." (NB: “ASMR,” which stands for autonomous sensory meridian response is a term used to describe a tingling, static-like, or goosebumps sensation in response to specific triggering audio or visual stimuli.)

For  those who did not see it, actress Scarlett Johannson absolutely nailed Britt . . . both in look and delivery  Her opening lines:

“My name is Katie Britt and I have the honor of serving the great people of Alabama. But tonight I’ll be auditioning the part of scary mom performing an original monologue called ‘This Country is Hell.”

The end of her 17-minute kitchen chat - in which she parroted Britt’s We see you. We hear you. We feel you,” had Johansson add And we smell you. We are inside you. We are inside your fridge. And what do we find there? MIGRANTS.

Where Johansson ‘s parody was both brilliant and hilarious, Senator Britt’s presentation was both haunting and toxic. To paraphrase the end of T.S. Elliott’s The Hollow Men:

This is the way the rebuttal ends

This is the way the rebuttal ends

This is the way the rebuttal ends

Not with a smile but a sniffle.

In many ways, Senator Britt was the ideal person to deliver the Republican response to Joe Biden. Her selection tells us a great deal about who the Party of the Predecessor is aiming to attract  and what values they hoped her presence would imply:

•  Younger voters: At 41 (and the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate), she is but half the age of Joe Biden.

•  Women and especially mothers: Almost the first words out of her mouth were “I am a wife and most importantly, a mother . . .” 

•  The Family Values Crowd: clearly wearing a crucifix, hanging somewhat ironically above just a hint of cleavage (like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert), talking about sitting around the kitchen table and discussing their concerns as a family, and standing in a kitchen which may well have been a “green screen” creation.  (I mean, when was the last time you saw a real refrigerator without a single magnetized note, report card or photograph on it, or a countertop without a bowl of fruit or a plant?) 

The past several days have brought into extraordinary and obvious focus the extreme differences between the newly-refashioned Republican (aka MAGA) Party and the Democrats. When it comes to platforms, the Democrats - whether one agrees in toto or not - at least have fully articulated specifics, and Republicans next to nothing other than bromides and wistful images of times long ago. Where Democrats have dreams they would love to create in an ideal world - dreams that for the most part benefit the many over the few - the Republicans have nightmares - nightmares in which Democracy is what they say it is.

Republicans want us to live in Katie Britt’s kitchen, as if it really exists and we could all afford it. They wish for the nuclear family to sit down to dinner every night - sans televisions, and I-phones and have mom serve a home-cooked meal while the children all say “please” and “thanks.” But this dream - as nostalgically nice as it may seem - would require a time machine . . . or a world which stands before a cosmic green screen,

If we’re ever going to take steps towards healing this world, we’ve got to begin with the search for what is best, and not worst, in one another. We will have to bring into sharper focus that which we demand of others as opposed to that which we are glad to overlook in ourselves. Otherwise, our war of words is going to become an open and bloody battlefield.

I conclude with a bit of wisdom my slightly older sister Erica sent me the other day. (With every passing year, she becomes wiser, wittier and more understanding)

Times zones are weird. In Europe it is today; in Australia it is tomorrow. And in Alabama, it is 1890 . . .

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#977: Putin on 'da Blitz

(Note: The title of this essay is, for those in the know, a word-play on a popular 1927 song by the great Irvin Berlin entitled “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” a slang expression meaning “to dress very fashionably.” There are 2 versions of the song: the original late ‘20s rendition in which the “swells” are Black Harlemites, and the updated 1946 version in which the nabobs are Park Avenue dandies. The latter version is known for the lyric “Dressed up like a million-dollar trouper/Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper”).

    Rally for the “Hollywood Ten” (Dalton Trumbo holding microphone)

For the past 7 weeks (with 1 week left to go), I have been presenting a film course at Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter campus, on films written by the masterful two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.  He was easily one of the best and most versatile wordsmiths in the 100+ year history of Hollywood.  His masterpieces ranged from the romantic (Kitty Foyle and Roman Holiday) to film noir (He Ran All the Way and Gun Crazy), historic spectacle (Spartacus and Exodus), guts and glory war pictures (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo) adventure (Papillon - his last) and two-hankie weepers (Our Vines Have Tender Grapes and The Brave One). 

Despite his glowing track record, Trumbo - along with fellow screenwriters John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Herbert Cole, Ring Lardner, and Herbert Bieberman, as well as director Edward Dmytryk were sent to prison and essentially blacklisted from the Hollywood film industry as members of the “Hollywood Ten.”  Their crime?  Members of the House Un-American Activities Committee, as well as what used to be called “Ladies’ Groups”,  leading Hollywood gossip columnists (Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, and Walter Winchell et al), and the Catholic Legion of Decency declared them to be “Communists,” “Communists sympathizers” and “Premature Anti-Fascists.” Eventually the net spread out by the so-called “defenders of 100% Americanism” ensnared hundreds - perhaps even thousands - of actors, editors, cinematographers, musical directors, and trade unionists; some went from the sound stages of Hollywood to the stages of Broadway or the microphones of radio; many lost their jobs, some packed up their families and went into exile; a handful even committed suicide.

Looking back on the politics of that dark, dark time, it is easy to see that the vast majority of those behind the “Reds Under the Beds” scare were staunch ultra-conservatives - largely midwestern Republicans and Southern Democrats. Many were racist or anti-Semitic. Whether or not they really, truly believed all the rhetoric they spewed or had simply found anti-Communism to be a great tool with which to climb the political ladder, is still unknowable. Many reveled in having the ability to look into the eyes of a Hollywood personality and ask, for seemingly the millionth time “Are you now, or have you ever been, a Communist?”

Frequently, the evidence used against a witness to “prove” that they were a “Red” (or a “Pink,” in the vocabulary of the era) was as thin as a sheet of Kleenex. Case in point, Trumbo was asked if he wrote the film “Tender Comrade,” which, at one point, had Ginger Rogers say “Share and share alike . . . that’s the democratic way.” “Yes, Trumbo responded. When he explained that the term “Tender Comrade” came not from his pen but rather from a poem that the late Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child’s Garden of Verses among other wonderful works) had written for his wife. Trumbo read aloud a few lines from Stevenson’s poem, simply entitled My Wife (1896): To my wife: Teacher, tender, comrade, wife. A fellow-farer in life . . . “ The Congressman who asked Trumbo the question then asked, “Was this Stevenson a Fellow Traveler like you?” Shades of Jim Jordan!

There is an old saw which states “The more things change, the more they remain the same.”  The way things have been going these past several years, I must conclude that this adage must be tossed out. Why?  75 years ago, when Dalton Trumbo and his ilk were facing a Republican-led inquisition those sitting above them were staunchly anti-Communist.  Anything - ANYTHING - that smacked of Joseph Stalin, Russia or collectivism, liberalism or universalism was the work of the Devil . . . evil incarnate.  Today, large parts of the Republican Party (a.k.a. “The Party of Trump”) treat Vladimir Putin as if he were an ideological ally. Putin, by contrast, continues to treat the U.S. as an enemy.  How the Trumps, Jordans, Tubbervilles, and (Mike) Johnsons of this world support the blitz against Democracy that comes from Putin’s Kremlin, Viktor Mihály Orbán’s Hungary and other autocrats with blood on their hands is incomprehensible. 

For quite a few years, the loyal opposition has believed that the FPOTUS must walk in lockstep with Putin because the latter has some salacious scandal - with or without photos and video - with which to keep him in line.  Whether true or not, I think it goes far, far deeper.  As David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick wrote in a recent piece in the New York Times: Trump and many other Republicans seem to feel ideological sympathies with Putin’s version of right-wing authoritarian nationalism. They see the world dividing between a liberal left and an illiberal right, with both themselves and Putin — along with Viktor Orban of Hungary and some other world leaders — in the second category.   

Already, House Republicans have blocked further aid to Ukraine — a democracy and U.S. ally that Putin invaded. Without the aid, military experts say Russia will probably be able to take over more of Ukraine than it now holds.

If Trump wins a second term, he may go further. He has suggested that he might abandon the U.S. commitment to NATO, an alliance that exists to contain Russia and that Putin loathes. He recently invited Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that don’t spend enough on their own defense. (Near the end of his first term, he tried to pull American troops out of Germany, but President Biden rescinded the decision.)

Trump has also avoided criticizing Putin for the mysterious death this month of his most prominent domestic critic, Aleksei Navalny, and has repeatedly praised Putin as a strong and smart leader. In a town hall last year, Trump refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win the war.

There are some caveats worth mentioning. Some skepticism about how much money the U.S. should send to Ukraine stems from practical questions about the war’s endgame. It’s also true that some prominent Republicans, especially in the Senate, are horrified by their party’s pro-Russian drift and are lobbying the House to pass Ukraine aid. “If your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position,” Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said last month.

The shift in elite Republican opinion toward Russia and away from Ukraine has influenced public opinion.

Shortly after Russia invaded, about three-quarters of Republicans favored giving Ukraine military and economic aid, according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Now, only about half do.

Republican voters are also less likely to hold favorable views of Zelensky. In one poll, most Trump-aligned Republicans even partly blamed him for the war. Republicans also support NATO at lower rates than Democrats and independents, a shift from the 1980s. These are the kinds of things that those speaking on behalf of the Democratic Party should be warning American voters about. Republican fascination with Putin and Russia is real. - and extraordinarily dangerous to the future of democracy. 

And whether they realize it or not, the Russian autocrat is “Putin on ‘da blitz.”

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#976: Just So Long As There's Something in the Glass

Just about everyone is familiar with the old saw that goes “The optimist sees the glass as being half full; the pessimist sees the glass as being half empty.” Years ago, I decided that there was actually a third option. This axiom states “As long as there’s something in the glass, there’s always the possibility of hope” I believe this is especially true in the world of politics. How so? Well, if one is overly pessimistic about the outcome of, say, an election or an issue, there is the likelihood that they will sit on their hands and let reality take its nasty course. Then too, frequently an optimist will sit back and await the good news . . . which may never come. The one who finds a ray of hope in what others may find to be either utterly hopeless or a lead-pipe cinch, is more likely to roll up their sleeves and take part in turning hope into reality.

Depending on where you live in these United States, there are just as many prospects for optimism as pessimism. As an example, a staunch Democrat has every reason to feel optimistic if they vote in, say, California, New York or Rhode Island, and every reason to feel pessimistic - if not downright hopeless -  if they reside and vote in, say, Alabama, Oklahoma or a majority of Florida.  Let’s face it: would take as much of a miracle for Republicans to control the legislature in California or Hawaii as it would for Democrats to rule in Texas or Missouri.  Being a progressive Democrat in Florida, I am grateful that we  live in the only liberal part of the state; at least those we vote for are likely to be be elected . . . even if they will be part of a tiny minority up in Tallahassee.  When it comes to my part of the state, I am an optimist; when it comes to the legislature I am a pessimist; when it comes to capturing the governor’s mansion, I am hopeful.  Thank G-d for their being something in the glass.

Every once in a while optimists get their electoral comeuppance because the hopeful have created a miracle.  Without question, the presidential election of 1948, which pitted the incumbent  Harry S. (“Give  ‘em Hell Harry”) Truman (D) against New  York Governor  Thomas E. Dewey (whom Alice Longworth Roosevelt stuck with the moniker "The Little Man on the Wedding Cake”).  Pundits and pollsters alike "knew” that Dewey would win in a landslide. So much so that nearly every newspaper in America carried the  same frontpage headline on November 2: DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!  As things turned out, those who believed the glass half full lost not to those who saw the glass as half empty, but rather to those - the hopeful - who made sure their fellows went to the polls and voted for the man from Independence.  And they saw things, there was something in the glass.

Depending on which side of the aisle you occupy these days, there’s plenty of room or reason for optimism or pessimism.  MAGA-ites from Florida to Washington State along with their allies in the various state legislatures  as well as the Clown Car Caucus on Capitol Hill, see the political glass overflowing.  They firmly believe that G-d’s  savior will once again occupy the White House (even if they have to steal the election); that abortion for any reason will be outlawed at the national level; that America will "return” to being a nation of, by and for White Christians; and that LGBT+ people pay the price for defiling G-d’s word and will.  Meanwhile,  optimists see the tide turning.  They believe that finally - finally - Donald Trump will be hit with the two things he most hates and fears: losing his fortune (and thus his name) and forever being identified in the history books as America’s “most notorious grifter and biggest loser.”  I believe it will be left to the hopefuls - those who find both  strength and motivation in there being something in the glass - of doing whatever is in their power to right the wrongs of the lethal  optimists whose world-view could signal the death of democracy. In short, I am hopeful that together, we can turn back the tide of “Trumptastrophe.”

 There is far more pessimism than optimism - and just plain fear - emendating from the latest and bloodiest conflict in the Middle East. That which began with a bloody attack on the part of Hamas on October 7 of last year, has metathesized throughout the region and threatens to spread still further. Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen firing missiles and drones at vessels in the Red Sea (which in turn led British and American warplanes to hit missile systems and launchers and other targets); Hezbollah launching missile attacks from Lebanon into Northern Israel; Israel decimating Gaza, killing tens of thousands of civilians while trying to destroy Hamas; a vexing and dangerous increase in anti-Semitism all over Europe as well as on Ivy League campuses here in the United States . . . the glass keeps draining.       

Where it would be both easy and completely understandable to see the glass as being far more than half empty, I am contenting myself with seeing something in the glass. In other words, there just may be a few hopeful signs on the horizon:

After a mostly successful round of talks in Paris last week, negotiations, aimed at securing a temporary cease-fire and the release of some hostages, will continue between an Israeli delegation and mediators from the U.S., Qatar and Egypt. It was announced earlier today (2/25/2024) that an Israeli delegation is expected to arrive in Qatar as soon as tomorrow for intensive talks with mediators aimed at closing the gaps around a new deal for a temporary cease-fire with Hamas and the release of some hostages held in Gaza - this according to an Israeli official familiar with the negotiations.

In last week’s discussions in Paris, Israel’s delegation agreed to a basic outline for a deal that would involve a six-week truce and the exchange of about 40 hostages captive in the enclave for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, The numbers of hostages and prisoners will likely change over the course of further negotiations, the Israeli officials cautioned. Recent discussions around a potential hostage deal have focused on the release of women, elderly and wounded captives.

For the first time, Israeli politicians and political influencers are beginning to imagine out loud what a next step could look like in Gaza. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's newly released plan for Gaza's future lacks much innovation, but it could fit into the outline formulated by the international community. The important question is when will Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip and allow for its rehabilitation to begin. His proposal, which calls for indefinite Israeli military control and buffer zones in the territory, rankled Arab nations and was rejected by Palestinians. This is not surprising; Bibi must dance to the tune played by his cabinet’s right flank (read: ultra-Orthodox, ultra-Nationalist) if he is to remain in power. Like his American counterpart, Donald Trump, the Israeli P.M. needs to remain in office in order to cloak himself in ministerial immunity in his ongoing corruption trials.

Influential members of the international press - including Serge Schmemann, a member of the New York Times editorial board and the former longtime Jerusalem bureau chief for “America’s Paper of Record,” has recently written about Marwan Barghouti, a long imprisoned terrorist who is considered by many to be the Palestinian’s Nelson Mandela. Unlike most Palestinian leaders, Barghouti has long accepted a two-state solution, speaks Hebrew, and learned diplomacy as a young up-and-coming assistant to Yasir Arafat. Barghouti, now in his mid 60’s, was part of Arafat’s team that helped create the Oslo Accords. During his time in the United States, he proved himself to be open and available to the press, warm and engaging.

                                       Marwan Barghouti

The search for a Palestinian leader has become more pressing, as the attention of Israel’s allies and its Arab neighbors turns to “after Gaza,” as Israelis refer to what will follow the extraordinarily destructive and deadly war there. Negotiations involving the United States and Arab states for a way to stop the fighting are intensifying, and one crucial unresolved question is whether there is anyone not linked to Hamas or the corruption in the Palestinian Authority who could take charge in a ravaged Gaza and replace the unpopular leader in the West Bank, the 88-year-old Mahmoud Abbas.

Ami Ayalon, a highly decorated Israeli official who had served as naval commander in chief, head of the internal Shin Bet security service and cabinet member, recently referred to Barghouti as “The only leader who can lead Palestinians to a state alongside Israel. First of all because he believes in the concept of two states, and secondly because he won his legitimacy by sitting in our jails.”

Even before completing, editing, recording and posting this blog piece, I can hear the jeers and catcalls from some of my readers who love to prove how little I know about virtually anything; calling me a fool, a dupe and a naïve self-hating Jew. Fortunately, over the course of a reasonably long life, I’ve developed a pretty thick hide and a desire to feel hopeful whenever I see at least a few drops in the glass.

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#975: Heroism vs. Cowardice: Alexei Navalny vs Vladimir Putin, Joseph Biden vs Donald Trump and Mike Johnson

                           Alexei Navalny (June 4, 1976 — February 16, 2024)

The late Alexei Navalny - who died (murdered, actually) just a few days ago in an icy-cold Russian gulag - and former president Donald Trump, have precisely 2 things in common: first, both will be remembered by history (albeit for totally different reasons) until the end of time and second, neither man will ever be awarded the Nobel Prize. In the first instance, of course, Navalny has earned his eternal niche as a hero among heroes; a world-class political organizer who gave millions upon millions of people hope in a time and a place where human degradation was a - if, indeed, not “the” - operating principle of a brutal autocratic regime. Trump’s place, on the other hand, will always be part of a different archive: one sparsely peopled with history’s most malevolent, narcissistic, self-serving, self-deluded cowards.

(n.b.: It should be noted that since 1974, the Nobel Foundation’s charter disallows prizes, regardless of category, to be awarded posthumously).

Within hours of the announcement that Navalny had died “while taking a walk” around the frozen prison grounds, nearly every leader or person of political influence or importance in virtually every small ”d” democratic country expressed their profound sympathies to the fallen lawyer/activist’s family and followers, and utter outrage and contempt at Russian President Vladimir Putin, who unquestionably had Navalny killed. The one gaping hole in the litany of leaders expressing their thoughts, feelings, and outrage was Donald Trump and the vast, vast majority of Republicans in the  U.S.A., who, either through sheer cowardice or a not-so-well-hidden admiration for the Russian autocrat and his thugs, decided to remain mum.    

There can be no question that Mr. Navalny, Putin’s most strident and best-known nemesis, was murdered. Most of Putin’s victims “fall out” of second-floor windows or die from exotic poisons or nerve agents. (Indeed, less than 24 hours ago, Maksim Kuzmanov, a Russian pilot who defected to the Ukraine, was “shot dead” in Spain.”)  

In addressing Navalny’s death, President Biden said,

Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny's death. What happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin's brutality. No one should be fooled, not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world. . . What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality.  No one should be fooled — not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world.  Putin does not only target his [the] citizens of other countries, as we’ve seen what’s going on in Ukraine right now, he also inflicts terrible crimes on his own people. 
And as people across Russia and around the world are mourning Navalny today because he was so many things that Putin was not: He was brave.  He was principled.  He was dedicated to building a Russia where the rule of law existed and of — where it applied to everybody.  Navalny believed in that Russia — that Russia.  He knew it was a cause worth fighting for and, obviously, even dying for.  

Biden concluded by saying:  He was brave. He was principled. He was dedicated to building a Russia where the rule of law existed and where it applied to everybody.

Shortly after the President made his remarks, democratically-elected leaders from nations around the globe began issuing their own statements; echoing the Biden’s sentiments - both on the positive and the negative side of the equation; praising and eulogizing both Navalny’s patriotic charisma and heroic grit, while excoriating and condemning the homicidal psychopathy of Vladimir Putin . . . the man who murders anyone who gets in his way.

Finally . . . finally, 72 hours after Navalny’s murder, Donald Trump, head of the MAGA Party and putative Republican Party candidate for POTUS, made his first and, so far, only statement . . . in which he never so much as uttered the words “Russia” or “Putin.” Having written and delivered thousands of eulogies in my rabbinic career, I’ve got to tell you: this one was sui generis (iunprecidented): a eulogy in which the eulogizer speaks only about himself and not the deceased.

Here, in its entirety are the 63 words he wrote on Truth Social, of which only 2 are devoted to the deceased:

“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country. It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION! MAGA2024.

It makes one wonder what in the Hell Putin has on Trump that the latter won’t even utter the name of the former for fear that . . . what? It’s got to be a doozy. Meanwhile, Trump’s cultists, in keeping with their master’s tortured silence, have kept suit and, likewise, maintained their own craven, pigeon-hearted reticence. The assassination of Navalny comes as the GOP is under the thrall of Putin. Trump and congressional Republicans are doing Putin’s work by refusing to provide supplemental funding for Ukraine. MAGA poster boy Tucker Carlson provided a platform last week for Putin to spread his lies about Russia’s history and territorial claims—including his claim that Ukraine is “not really a separate country.” Even Putin was derisive of Tucker Carlson’s pathetic interview.  Putin Says He Thought Tucker Carlson Would Ask Tougher Questions.

The heroism of Navalny highlights the craven cowardice of both Donald Trump and House Republicans. Speaker Mike Johnson. for his part, Johnson is damaging US foreign policy so he won’t have to provoke the ire of Trump’s strongest, most obnoxious devotee, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Remember, Johnson’s Speakership hangs by a thread that is even thinner and more fragile than the sword swinging about the head of Damocles. In his mind, should he do the right thing and bring the Ukraine/Israel aid bill to the floor, his head will be quickly become separated from the rest of his anatomy.

Against Mike Johnson’s cowardice (emblematic of all congressional Republicans) is the heroism of Alexei Navalny. In anticipation of his own assassination, Navalny left these words to those who remained behind:

“If they decide to kill me, then it means we are incredibly strong.

We need to utilize this power and not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed . . . . We don’t realize how strong we actually are.  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing,, so don’t be inactive.”

My friends and readers: go with the heroes and heroines (like Navalny’s widow Yulia, who has sworn to keep up his mission) and do everything in your power to fight the cowardice of the Trumps, Johnsons, Greenes and Tubervillles of this world . . . and always remember Alexei’s self-written epitaph.

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#794:Superbowl LVIII: Commercials and Pigskins, Conspiracies and Politics

Ah, Superbowl Sunday! Chiefs vs Niners. Las Vegas Nevada’s Allegiant Stadium. Quarterbacks Brock Purdy (the very last pick of the 2022 NFL Draft) and Chief’s Patrick Mahomes (the 10th pick of the 2017 NFL Draft). Chief’s Tight End Travis Kelce and Niner Running Back Christian McCaffrey. The Taylor Swift/Kelce conspiracy. Singer/Dancer/Roller Skater Usher leading the halftime show. Country icon Reba McEntire singing the National Anthem and actor Daniel Durant signing the national anthem in an American Sign Language performance. Commercials, commercials, commercials.  And oh yes, 60 minutes of gigantic multi-millionaires over an oval pigskin  . . . 

If the above causes you to think that I am not a football fan . . . guess again.  Although I may not be thoroughly in to the NFL as I am MBL (Major League Baseball), professional football (minus the all that irresistible force/immoveable object stuff and the future chronic traumatic encephalopathy it will likely cause) is still pretty exciting to watch.  And heck, what California kid could resist rooting for the NIners - historically, the first professional sports team in the state?  (For the record, the first sports team in state history was the Los Angeles Angels, opened up shop way back in 1892 and played in the four-team California League.)

Even if you’re not a football fan, there are all those commercials. Already, a listing of what will likely be the most talked-about ads. First and foremost, a 30-second spot will cost the advertiser  $7 million. And this is minus all the production costs, which can run into the tens of millions. Some of the ads we should be on the lookout for are:

• Kris Jenner for Oreo

• Jenna Ortega for Doritos

• David and Victoria Beckham with the Friends cast for UberEats

• Ice Spice for Starry

• Chris Pratt for Pringles

• Arnold Schwarzenegger for State Farm

• Tom Brady for BetMGM

• Lionel Messi for Michelob Ultra

• Kate McKinnon (“Weird Barbie”) for Hellman’s Mayo and

• The Scorseses for Squarespace.

One concern that hasn’t a huge deal about running not one, but two spots is FCAS - the “Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism.” During the pre-game show, FCAS will air the following 60 second spot:

The main ad features FCAS founder (and New England Patriots’ owner) Robert Kraft speaking  with Clarence B. Jones, attorney, and the former personal counsel, advisor, draft speech writer and close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Jones is a scholar in residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Institute at Stanford University.  (Jones, who turned 93 just about a month ago, is also the step father of American Actor Richard Schiff, best-known for playing Toby Ziegler on The West Wing.) This spot shows the precise moment when Mr. Kraft shared with Dr. Jones news that there was going to be a commercial aired during the Super Bowl on anti-Semitism:

As you can see, Dr. Jones’ response is quite emotional. Please also notice that, like Mr. Kraft, is wearing an iconic blue square “Stop Anti-Semitism” lapel pin, which is the symbol of FCAS. This ad comes at the perfect time; the one day in the year when more people watch television than any other. This means that along with ads for Oreos, UberEats and Doritos, men, women and children of all stripes will spend even a few seconds contemplating the sin known as anti-Semitism. It is needed now, more than ever.

Having watched a sneak preview of FCAS’s ads more than a half-dozen times, I am reminded of one of history’s greatest and most necessary of aphorisms . . . courtesy of a truly wise man named Hillel. For in the Jewish compendium called Pirke Avot (“The Ethics of the Sages”) Hillel states”

אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי:

“eem ayn ahnee li, me li?  ukh’sh’ahnee l’ahtz-mi, mah ahnee?  v’eem lo ahkh-shav, ay-mah-tie?

Namely: “If I am not for myself, who shall be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

Imagine that: a Super Bowl containing an eternal message to ponder . . .

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#793: Once Upon a Time In America

      Lullaby and Good Night . . . 

Once upon a time in America, a vast majority of television stations - like the people who watched them - shut down at midnight and got a good night’s sleep. For those who are of a certain age, as the current expression goes, the Indian-head test pattern on the left will bring back instant memories: once Jack Paar, Jeepers Creepers (for those living in L.A and watching channel 13 [KCOP]) or George “Here’s to a Better, Stronger America” Putnam (KTTV, channel 11) signed off, it was time to check out.  Or, as the ultra-conservative   Putnam would have it, “That’s the up-to-the-minute news, up to the minute, that’s all the news."

Unless memory is pulling a fast one on  yours truly, I recall fewer and more wholesome commercials.  Who amongst the “gang of a certain age” can help but identify:

• “Katy Winters” (real name Anne Starr Roberts) who was the face of “Secret” deodorant;

• "Bucky Beaver” (“Brusha, brusha, brusha, with the new Ipana”);

• Oscar Mayer” (“Here comes little Oscar [George Molchan] in his Weinermobile”); 

• “Mikey” (John Gilchrist, Jr,) of the single Life Cereal commercial (“He likes it! Hey Mikey!”) which seemingly ran forever, or

• Mr. Whipple (Dick Wilson) the hypocrite who just couldn’t help but "squeeze the Charmin” despite warnings to the opposite.  

Today, of course, there are literally thousands of stations, most broadcasting 24 hours a day, 168 hours every week. Many people go to bed (if not to sleep) with the blasted thing still on. Is it any wonder so many people are so exhausted? And, so far as commercials go, the wholesome Katy Winters’s, Bucky Beavers, Josephine the Plumbers, Madge the Manicurists and Clara Pellers (“Where’s the beef?”) have been replaced by Allstate’s “Mayhem Guy” (Dean Winters), the unnamed couple who are so proud they had UTIs (urinary tract infections) last year; that debunked con artist who wants nothing more than to rush you free of charge his “Miracle Spring Water” so that you will suddenly become richer than Croesus; and all those anonymous folks who have lost gazillions of pounds by taking (?), GOLO. I mean nowhere - but NOWHERE in this ad is there even a hint as to what in the world GOLO is: a product? A pill? A dietary regimen? A psychological ploy?

Once upon a time in America, every bit of “medical merchandise” on the tube was easily purchasable without a prescription . . . like Bactine, Band-Aids and Bromo Seltzer. Nowadays, we are inundated with information about prescription drugs and medicines that we should be informing out physicians about. For every systemic condition there is a new monoclonal antibody (drugs ending in “mab”), a new beta blocker (ending in “lol”) or new drugs to treat anxiety (ending in either “pam” or “lam”). And of course, half of each commercial fulfills its legal obligation to the FDA by telling us what possible adverse events (bad side effects) are possible. This is all well and good, but shouldn’t it be the other way around; that our doctors prescribed the medications?

My least favorite commercials are those which hide the truth behind miniscule wording on the bottom of the screen; from “law firms” that want nothing more than to help us file personal injury suits against anyone and everyone who has ever harmed us; those which promise to sell us guaranteed life insurance regardless of our health, bad habits or age . . . and all for less than a dollar a day; of products which, if we are among the first 250 to call, they can double our purchase (“simply add a handling fee”). Every once in a while, I record commercials such as these, then run them back and stop in order to read all the wording at the bottom of the screen; most make it clear that everything you hear should be taken with a rather large grain of salt. Occasionally, I even count the words; many of these “obviations” contain more words than my favorite Shakespearian Sonnet: #18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) . . . which contains a mere 114. Once upon a time in America,

Once upon a time in America, most of the people we elected to solve problems and fix potholes did just that. Many followed the sage advice of President Harry S. Truman, who  taught us “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit,” In today’s America many, without every having known of Truman’s dictum  do exactly the opposite: “Sit on your hands and do nothing; doing something may give the opposition the ability to look good in the eyes of the  public; doing nothing gives you the opportunity to pin the blame on them for not having solved the problem. in the first place” 

Once upon a time in America, impeaching a public official - especially at the Federal level - was as rare as rocking horse manure. Ever since the days of President Bill Clinton, impeachment has become increasingly more de rigueur.  Where Nixon resigned before he could be impeached (knowing that he, in all likelihood, would be convicted), Clinton was impeached (though not convicted)  on two articles, charging him with perjury in his grand jury testimony and obstructing justice in his dealings with various potential witnesses.  In both of Donald Trump’s 2 impeachments, there was a wealth of evidence that he had committed “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” And yet, in both instances, the Senate failed to convict.  Nonetheless, Trump, most Congressional Republicans and the MAGA wing of the party have continued proclaiming that he never did anything wrong (despite thousands upon thousands of pages of testimony) and was merely the “victim of a political witch-hunt.”  And thus, one of history’s greatest self-proclaimed “victims” started getting front page headlines for being a casualty of partisan politics . . . along with all his followers.

The impeachment pandemic is still with us . . . and growing in both scope and baseless nothingness. (n.b.: if the term “baseless nothingness” rings a bell with you it can only mean that you’ve read your Nietzsche; he referred to it as ‘nihilism.’)  Case in point: on January 21, 2021 - a single day after Joseph Biden’s inauguration - Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed an article of impeachment against the nation’s 46th POTUS.  What sort of “High  Crime and/or Misdemeanor” could the poor fellow have committed in his first 24 hours in office?  You tell me. 

Precisely six months later, Donald Trump expressed interest in pursuing a scenario in which he would run for a Congressional seat in Florida in the 2022 House elections, get himself elected Speaker of the House, and then launch an impeachment inquiry against his successor.  (n.b.: If Trump or his associates knew anything about the U.S. Constitution, they would know that one need not be a member of the House in order to become Speaker. I wrote about this in March 2021 in a piece called “My Friend Marvin, in which I recommended somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that the House look to former Oklahoma Representative Mickey Edwards to become Speaker despite not being a member of that body.

                        Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis

Following the withdrawal of American military forces from Afghanistan, the Fall of Kabul on August 15, 2021, and the subsequent attack on Kabul's airport, several Republicans, including Representatives Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Ronny Jackson, called for either the stripping of Biden's powers and duties via the 25th Amendment or removal of Biden from office via impeachment if Americans and allies were left behind and held hostage in Afghanistan by the Taliban.  At the time, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pledged a “day of reckoning” against Biden. There were also Republican calls for Vice President Kamala Harris and other Biden Cabinet officials to be impeached and removed as well.

And now, in addition to all the hearings on President Biden’s son Hunter (who cannot be impeached because he has never been elected to any office) there comes the newest and, in my estimation, the most  frivolously brainless of all attempted impeachments: that of Alejandro Mayorkis, the nation’s 7th Secretary of Homeland Security.  After discussing the matter of impeaching Secretary Mayorkis for nearly a year, this past Sunday (January 28, 2024), House Republicans released two impeachment charges against the Cuban-born Mayorkis (he came to the  U.S. when he was 2).  accusing the Secretary of high crimes and misdemeanors for his implementation of US immigration policy. The first article charges Mayorkas with “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law” by implementing a so-called “catch and release” policy, which allows many migrants awaiting court proceedings to remain in the United States without being detained.  It should be remembered that Republicans have, by and  large, despised Mayorkis since his time in the Obama Administration when it took him a mere 60 days to implement the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  During his nearly 3 years as Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security during the Obama Administration, he led U.S. government efforts to rescue orphaned children following the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti and led the advancement of a crime victims unit that, for the first time, made it possible for the agency to issue the statutory maximum number of visas to victims of crime.   This has never sat well with Republican members of Congress.

On November 9, 2023, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to impeach Mayorkas, citing a dereliction of duty and saying he "failed to maintain operational control of the [Southern] border." The motion to impeach failed to pass on November 13, with the House voting 209–201 to defer the resolution to the House Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Tennessee Republican Mark Green. Eight Republicans joined all Democrats in blocking the measure.

On January 28, 2024, House Republicans introduced two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, alleging "willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law" and breach of the public trust. Constitutional experts and Democrats asserted Republicans were using impeachment to address immigration policy disputes rather than for high crimes and misdemeanors, of which there was no evidence. One Legal scholar and law professor, Jonathan Turley, commented that the impeachment lacked a "cognizable basis" and that the inquiry had failed to show "conduct by the secretary that could be viewed as criminal or impeachable.” Former DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, a Republican, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that "Republicans in the House should drop this impeachment charade and work with Mr. Mayorkas to deliver for the American people." On the eve of a committee vote on the impeachment articles, the conservative Wall Street Journal Editorial Board also questioned the reasoning for impeachment, writing "A policy dispute doesn't qualify as a high crime and misdemeanor."

On January 31, Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee approved the articles along party lines for referral to the full House. The rest remains to be seen.  However, it is obvious that as is succinctly stated in the cartoon above, the Republicans reason for seeking to impeach Secretary Mayorkis (a practicing Sephardic Jew) is to blame him for “doing nothing” about the crisis at America’s Southern border . . . which Republicans wish to use as a cudgel against Democrats in the 2024 presidential election.  

Once upon a time in America, politicians placed progress above partisanship.  Apparently, this is no longer the case.  

We conclude with a thought from Republican Nikki Hayley, a woman who, although I would never vote for her, does seem to understand the nature of  politics in the modern age:

I think it's very important to get ego out of the room. I think it's important to realize it takes two hands to clap - stop the pointing, stop the blame game. I think we've seen enough of that, I think the country is tired of it. I think they want to see Washington function, they want to see action.

Once upon a time in America was indeed, a long time ago.

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#972: A Word to my Family, Friends, Classmates and Readers in California

I must admit that while I have not voted in any California election in nearly 48 years, my heart, soul and political attentions have always remained in the state of my birth and first quarter century. As I have long proudly averred, “while I may reside and cast my votes in Florida (or Ohio, Arkansas, Pennsylvania or Vermont) “I am still a ‘Hollywood Brat.’ I still follow California politics as closely as ever.

Down here in Florida, where I have “resided” for decades,  politics is pretty damn dismal.  It has become so lopsidedly, so militantly, so mindlessly conservative as to make one truly fear for the future of America.  Our Governor, “Rhonda Santis,” calls it “The Free State of Florida.”  And, mind you, he says this without a hint of irony.  “Free?”  This is a state which leads the nation in banned books, has a militia that statutorily is beholden only to the gubernator, is about to eliminate Sociology as a core course at all 9 state universities, (replacing it with a history class which includes “America’s founding, the horrors of slavery, the resulting Civil War and the Reconstruction era”) and outlawing women traveling to the Sunshine State in order to obtain an abortion, And just the other day, the legislature, which is currently in session, has decided to follow the wishes of their anti-woke leader, and take up legislation which will forbid all children under the age of 16 from being on social media . . . even if their parents approve.

Ah for the sanity of California. I’ll take Gavin Newsome over Rhonda Santis any day of the week and thrice on Shabbos!

“No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe”  John Steinbeck                                

Back home in California, politics are decidedly different. The state is firmly in Democratic hands from the governor’s office (Gavin Newsome, a possible future presidential candidate) to the state legislature (the Assembly is 62-18 Dem.; the 40-member Senate 80% Dem.); the 3 largest cities (L.A., San Francisco and San Diego) all have Democratic mayors, two of whom are women of color, the other a man of color). The state boasts the best system of public universities and colleges in the nation, and has the nation’s most awesome topography. Yes, California does have high taxes, high gas prices, very expensive homes and other assorted problems and challenges . . . but at least its leaders are doing their best to manage the world’s 4th largest economy. To people in the so-called “Red States” who equate California with “La La Land” and nothing more, let me inform you: this is an outright slander; indeed, we are far, far more.

1 week ago, 4 candidates for the United States Senate seat vacated with the death of the late Dianne Feinstein, engaged in a debate in front of a crowd at the University of Southern California.  Included in this debate were 3 Democratic members of Congress (Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff) and one Republican . . . former Dodger first baseman Steve Garvey.  Reps. Lee, Porter and Schiff have long served in Congress: each is a distinct person with a distinct personal history and easily capable of becoming a creditable senator: 

• The 77 year-old Barbara Lee has represented an East Bay (Oakland, Berkeley) district since 1998.  She is easily one of the most progressive members of Congress.  At one time, she was a homeless single mom doing her best to raise 2 children on public assistance and food stamps while earning a degree in Social Work at Mills College in Oakland, becoming a social worker and then getting elected to the California state legislature.  In the U.S. House, she was the only member of Congress to vote against the authorization of use of force following the September 11 attacks, and one of just 17 members of the House to vote  against a House resolution condemning the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel.  She is a strong advocate for gun control, has supported a number of efforts to reform cannabis laws in Congress, and has made affordable housing a top priority.

• Rep. Katie Porter, a 50-year old Iowa native, has represented an Orange County district since 2019.  She is a graduate of Phillips Academy, Yale and Harvard Law School.  While at Harvard, she studied bankruptcy law under future Senator Elizabeth Warren, and eventually became a tenured professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law.  As a 3 term member of Congress, she has supported President Biden 98.2% of the time, and has become best known  for her pointed questioning of public officials and business leaders during congressional hearings, often using visual aids such as whiteboards.  Porter was recognized by the press as one of the first Democrats in a swing district to support an impeachment inquiry based on the findings of Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation.  She wound up voting for both the first and second impeachments of Donald Trump.

• Now age 63, Adam Schiff, a graduate of Stanford and Harvard Law , Schiff  began his career as a highly successful Federal Prosecutor; In this position, Schiff came to public attention when he prosecuted the case against Richard Miller, a former FBI agent who spied for the Soviet Union. The first trial resulted in a hung jury; the second trial resulted in a conviction that was overturned on appeal. Miller was convicted in a third trial.  Schiff went on to serve a four-year term in the California State Senate where he authored “tough on crime” legislation which did not always get past a governor’s veto.  Defeating veteran Republican Joe Rogan, Schiiff was elected to the House in 2015, where he eventually rose to become Chair of the House Intelligence Committee (2013-2013), manager of the first Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump, and a key member of the January 6th Committee, which investigated Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. His emotional 25-minute closing speech before the Senate vote for or against the conviction of Donald Trump, garnered Schiff a lot of praise from Democrats and “grudging respect” from Republicans.   Nonetheless, for his efforts, he was eventually censured by his House colleagues which, to this day, he says he “wears as a badge of honor.”:  Schiff is the only Jewish candidate in this race, and, has made his support for Israel’s right to defend itself against the terrorists of Hamas a major part of his candidacy.  Among the 3 members of Congress currently running for the senate nomination, he has clearly passed the greatest amount of legislation, and has garnered endorsements from Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi as well as the endorsements  of an overwhelming number of his colleagues in the California Congressional delegation. 

• Steve Garvey: the 75-year old former Major League baseball player who spent most of his professional career playing first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Winner of the National  League’s 1974 MVP award, Garvey has been hinting about someday running for political office ever since.  Despite finishing his Major League Career with a lifetime .294 batting average, 2,699 hits, 272 homeruns and 1,308 RBIs, he has yet to be elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame.  During the recent televised debate,, Democrats Lee, Holmes and Schiff ganged up on him, trying to get him to state whether or not he would support Donald Trump (let alone vote for him in 2024). He refused.    Moreover, he refused to stake himself to any positions on the major political issues of the day.  Regrettably, the former baseball icon wound up looking more like a “deer in the headlights” than a serious candidate.

By law, California has a unique “open primary” voting system, wherein all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, run on the same primary ballot. Following the primary, the top-two vote getters - regardless of party affiliation - face off against one another in the November general election. This means that it is possible for 2 Democrats to be running against one another in the general election. In the case of this Senate race, Adam Schiff, prior to the debate, outpolled both representatives Lee and Porter, with Garvey a distant fourth.  In the first post-debate poll, the Emerson College Poll listed Adam Schiff at 25%, Steve Garvey 18%, Katie Porter 13% and Barbara Lee 8%.  If these figures remain reasonably stable until the primary election (March 5th), this would put Schiff and Garvey squaring off in November.  And in a state as liberal as California, that would make Adam Schiff all but assured of victory. From where I sit and type, this is a very good thing; Adam Schiff is clearly one of the shining stars in Washington, D.C.  He has succeeded at every level, is a thorough-going gentleman who can both take a punch and deliver a political uppercut with the best of ‘em. 

Steve Garvey will likely never make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Although he had a stellar career both on the field and at the plate, he has never worked or served a day in office.  He is merely a millionaire celebrity whose last hurrah was way back in 1987. 

To my California family, friends, classmates and readers, please cast your vote for Adam Schiff - whether by mail [which will be going out February 5] or in person [on March 5].  He will hit the ground running (after all, he is both a marathoner and pentathlete), and continue ably representing his constituents for many years to come. He can easily fit into the shoes last worn by the late Dianne Feinstein.  I predict that one day  Adam will be the Senate Majority Leader . . . if some future Democratic POTUS doesn’t nominate him for Attorney General.

Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#971 Hen: A "Gentle Gentleman"

                      Dad upon his arrival in Hollywood, c. 1936

Today, January 21, 2024 is our father Henry’s 109th birthday. Though he passed away more than 21 years ago, not a day goes by when his children and grandchildren, his nieces, nephews and what few friends still occupy this mortal coil, don’t think about him, hear his ever-so-slightly Southern-tinged diction or think about what a difference he made in the lives of so many people. In his prime - which lasted most of his nearly 88 years - he was more handsome than Robert Taylor, wore clothes better than Adolphe Menjou and above all, was a humble success. (Ironically, when his hair turned white and he began wearing thick-black horn-rimmed glasses, he could have passed for Cary Grant’s twin brother.) In his obituary [published in the Los Angeles Daily News), he was most aptly described as “a gentle gentleman.”

Born in Baltimore, Maryland on January 21, 1915, the first of 3 children born to Isaac (“Ike”) and Sheva (Greenberg) Schimberg.  Both the Schimbergs and Greenbergs had been living in Baltimore as far back as the 1840s, when its nickname was “Mobtown.” Ike, who was somewhere between hard-of-hearing and just plain deaf, worked as a clothing cutter.  He must have been pretty good, because the company that employed him kept moving the family between Baltimore and Richmond, Virginia, where they had another factory. 

In order to make ends meet, Ike and Sheva would occasionally take in what today we call foster children.  According to family legend, one of these children was Mary Margaret Ruth, the sister of George Herman "Babe” Ruth.  After doing a lot of research, I now think it is not a family legend; it is what in Yiddish is called a bubbe meise - an “old wives’ tale.”  According to Mary, she didn’t like her first name; her brother George (The Babe) nicknamed her “Mamie,” which stuck.  Well, it so happens that Ike and Sheva did have a youngester living with them for many, many years: Sheva’s younger sister also nicknamed “Mamie.”  Whether truth or fiction, Henry became a devoted, lifelong  baseball  fan.  Another family legend: Sheva was dead set on her son being admitted to the newly created Forest Park High School in Baltimore’s Dorchester neighborhood - it was going to be the best school in Baltimore.  And so, the legend goes, she took herself across town to 4300 Chatham Road where the new school was located, took out a pillow and a blanket from her bag, and spent the night on the school’s doorstep so that come morning, she would be first in line. I would like to think the story’s true, for Dad did get admitted and graduated at age 16.  From there it was on to the University of Richmond (in those days called “The Harvard of the South”), where he studied business.  He left college after two years; the Depression was on, and he had to find work.

Grandma Sheva thought her son was the handsomest young man on the planet and urged him to go out to Hollywood, where she was absolutely certain he would become the next Robert Taylor.  The year was 1936; Henry (called “Hen” by family and friends) took his mother’s advice, borrowed $100.00 from a man named Stone, and went out west seeking fame, fortune and flashbulbs.  Alas, the first and and last of the 3 Fs was simply not to be.  Despite being possessed of dashing good looks, a better than average speaking voice and had the innate ability to make an off-the-rack suit of clothes look like a creation straight from  Saville Row, Hen really knew nothing about acting.  And so, while making the rounds and working at enough odd jobs to keep the wolf from the door - where others might wait tables at Hamburger Hamlet he sold jewelry for Kays - he came to realize that the old Hollywood aphorism was correct: "If you can’t act well, you should at least know to behave.”  And  behave he certainly could; he was a gentleman with a gentle touch and a gifted mind, and was as honest as the day is long.  Certainly something would come his way.

                  Memories of Jewelry Days and World War II

Even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hen had enlisted in the United States military.  He reasoned that America would eventually go off to fight the Nazi scourge, and that in order  to do so, would need a universal draft.  Figuring that any World War would last far longer than, say, a two-year  enlistment, he decided to volunteer his services for six years.  In that way, he reasoned, it would force the army to put him through a battery of tests, and figure out where he could best serve his country.  And so, after a battery of aptitude tests, the then 26-year old found himself spending the next several years studying to become a "weather forecaster” - what they called "meteorologists” in days long gone.  In the meantime, he meet our mother Alice at a party given by her cousin Mitzi at her home in Beverly Hills.  She was a decade younger than he, already an accomplished stage actress, and like Hen, had come out to Hollywood (in her case from Chicago) to get into movies.  She had arrived as a beautiful 17-year old armed with a good resume, a ton of talent as a singer, dancer, and actor, and all the self-confidence in the  world.  They made a great couple . . . their nearly 60-year marriage proves that.  They were married in July, 1943; while Hen (still named Schimberg) would move from school to school studying weather, she would accompany him, working for quite some time in an Italian POW camp.  

Eventually, Dad was shipped off to India (despite having studied weather in mostly snow-bound climates) where he spent the rest of the war as a T/Sgt., forecasting weather conditions for pilots flying over “The Hump" on a supply line in the China, Burma, India theatre.  During the course of his 6 years in the Army Air Corps, he earned numerous medals and commendations - none of which he spoke of for more than half a century.  In fact, it wasn’t until just about a year before he passed on that we got him to talk about his time in the military.  “Why,” we asked, “have you never uttered a word about the war?  Was it too gory?”   “No, not at all,” he said, speaking into a video camera.  “For me, the war in India consisted of going into an office every day and doing what I was trained to do.  About the only time it got a bit hairy was when I had to urge a high-ranked officer to stay on the ground and not fly over The Hump due to terrible weather.  Well, you know, these generals thought they knew it all, and here I was, just a lowly Technical Sergeant,” ordering them around.  Fortunately, I was just a good enough actor to convince them that I knew what I was speaking about.”

 “And besides,” he continued, “I feel sorry for all those lads who are still talking about the war more than a half century after it ended.  How sad that that this was the high-point of their lives.  For me, life was far more interesting both before and after the war.  World War II was just a necessity, nothing more, nothing less.  And besides, I really don’t want to think about it because every time I do, I feel guilty.”  “Why guilty?” I asked. “You know,” he said, starting slowly, as if tiptoeing up on a difficult memory, “India was and is still a terribly poor country.  And here I was, living in a wonderful flat, employing a cook, driver and personal valet.  How can I remember all that without feeling guilty?”  That’s just the sort of gentleman our father was. 

Once the war was over and he returned to Hollywood, Hen started to look for what he  was going to do.  He figured  that he had the intellectual skills, the drive, the contacts, and the innate sales ability to succeed . . . if only he could figure  out what to sell.  And so, after a few false starts (such as “Flash TV,” in which he tried renting color television sets to saloons and taverns . . . long before anyone had ever heard of color TV . . . he hearkened on a relatively new product and approach: Mutual Funds.  Hollywood was full of people  making thousands upon thousands of dollars per week and still merely scraping by.  Why?  Why?  Simple. Few of them knew anything about budgeting their fabulous salaries or the importance of making investments in order to safeguard their futures. And so, along with a young friend pretty much in the same position as he, they created a company called “California Investors,” which became the first stock brokerage  firm to specialize in Mutual Funds.  He and his partner worked their tails off and before too long, had several offices and were doing quite well.  Many of their clients were from the Hollywood community . . . Eventually they spread over much of California.  At one point they began turning their attention to other financial vehicles such as “Completion Insurance,” in which dividends from their mutual fund would automatically the purchase of life insurance.  I can remember a time when my father had a business card which on the back, had the name and home telephone number of every mutual fund manager in America.  Indeed, it  was a long, long time ago.  As time went on, the house we lived in got bigger, the cars were newer and larger, and the firm owned a weekend property in Palm Springs.  But dad was still dad: he bowled weekly in the synagogue’s Men’s Club bowling league (in which he managed to bowl one tremendous line every year thus winning a trophy), took us to Dodger games and was just plain dad.  

At the synagogue, he became increasingly “important,” eventually becoming the shul’s financial vice president.  How well I remember all the people hanging around him hoping to pick up a stock tip . . . which would have been illegal.  Instead, with a smile, he would tell them “I have a great tip for all of you . . . come closer . . . “  And then, he would whisper “Buy  low, sell high!” 

Not what you would call a “flaming liberal” his firm, nonetheless,  became the first to hire Black, Hispanic, Asian and Gay brokers.  If anyone would ask him why (and remember, this was during a time when everyone was looking for “Reds Under the Beds”) he would answer simply but honestly, “Who stands the best chance of selling an Asian or Black a stock offering? Another Asian or Black!” 

 A lifelong, quiet admirer of FDR and the New Deal, he once mentioned to Madame that he might consider voting for Richard Nixon (whom she despised because of his having been a leading member of the House Un-American Activities Committee), she told him that she would “pull a Lysistrata“on him unless he changed his mind.  He relented, and voted for Hubert Humphrey, who nonetheless lost to “Tricky Dickie.”

                             Madame, Dad, Erica and Yours Truly, c 1980

Right after I graduated high school and before I went away to university, he put me to work at the main office of California Investors on Olympic Blvd, not too far from Paramount Studios.  I did filing, messengering and delivering important documents to the offices of the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.  The only rule I had to follow (besides being polite and honest) was not telling anyone (except for Mr. Jones, an executive who used to run Eastern Airlines) that I was Mr. Stone’s son.  At first, I thought this was so that no one would treat me differently than any other young messenger making $300.00 a month.  Following that rule actually had a great benefit: I got to hear his employees talk freely about the company and especially what they thought about its upper-level executives.  It never ceased to amaze me - and bring great pride - that to a man or woman (yes, my father was among the first to hire female brokers) they thought he was a true gentleman.  

Hen rarely spoke about himself.  Unlike his beloved father-in-law (“Grandpa Doc”), he wasn’t a storyteller.  Indeed, in almost any situation, Doc would say “that reminds me of a story,” and then go off to the literary races.  Not so Dad.  I do remember one true story he told me when I was working for him on Olympic Blvd:

 One day a woman made an appointment with him and was ushered into his office.  She was carrying a sizeable briefcase.  After a few pleasantries, she told him that she was a schoolteacher, single, and living with her elderly mother.  Opening the briefcase, she pulled out a sheaf of what looked like a sheaf of antique stock certificates.  “I found these in our attic the other night,” she explained.  “They are a bunch of shares in a mine that mom’s grandfather worked up in Minnesota a long, long time ago.”  She quickly got to the point: “Do you know anyone who could track down the history of this mine and determine if they’re worth anything today?”  Dad told her he knew someone who was a stock historian and if she would leave them with him, he would get back to her by the end of the week.

At this point in his story, Dad paused, smiled, and continued.  “Turns out that that mine was the basis for the 3-M corporation” (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing) and were still negotiable after all these years.  “You know Kurt, I could easily have offered her a thousand, telling her that her story had touched my heart.  But instead, when she returned, I presented her with a sizeable portfolio based on the current market value of 3-M, which would permit her and her mother to live off the dividends for the rest of their lives.  You have no idea of what I could have done if I weren’t an honest man . . . “  That’s about all the bragging I ever heard came  out of this gentle gentleman’s mouth.

                                                 Mom and Dad, c. 1943

Hen rarely ever showed a sense of humor; he just wasn’t that sort of fellow . . . except for one memorable occasion more than 50 years ago which is still as fresh in my memory as if it happened just last night: In about 1968, he called me up and asked if I could fly to  Las Vegas and meet him and spend a couple of days with himself and his younger sister Jackie who would be there with my Uncle Marty.  Hey, a free trip to Las Vegas . . . why not?  And so I went and joined them.  Dad really spread out the red carpet; nothing was too good for his sister, brother-in-law and son.  After the second night, as Jackie and Marty were heading up to their room, Dad said, “Let’s go out; there’s somewhere I want  to take you.”  And so, we proceeded to the old downtown section of Vegas and went to what used to be known as a “Burlesque House” - a place with strippers and baggy-pants comedians.  The women were shapely (zaftig, actually) and the comedians ridiculous. Turns out, the real show wasn’t on the stage; rather it was Dad who laughed so hard that there were tears streaming  down his face.  I had never seen him like that before, and certainly never would again.  It was a side of him that he kept well-hidden.  As we went back to our hotel, he winked at  me and said “Let that be our little  secret!”

Dad never really retired.  Eventually, California Investors was sold and moved to the Beneficial Standard Building on the Wilshire Blvd. ”Miracle Mile,” just across the street from LACMA (the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the La Brea (Tar) Pits and the recently opened Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Mom and Dad built a new place out in Woodland Hills, about 2 miles from the Motion Picture Country Home (MPTF), once known as the “Mary Pickford House.”  When we questioned why Mom would have Dad build a new house at his age (then at least 75), she said “He’ll have to live forever just to pay it off!”  How typical . . .  After Hen’s passing in 2002, Madame continued to live  there for nearly another 20 years . . . (what would have been her 100th birthday will occur this coming February 8.  A small gathering will be held in  her memory replete with stories, food and  fables).

From first to last, Hen was a unique blend of gentleman, devoted husband, father and grandfather, humbly successful super salesman, L.A. Dodger fan, world traveler and, above all, a gentle gentleman.  There’s an old  Hal David/Burt Bacharach song called “What the World Needs Now” (1965).  For those who remember it, the “what” that the world so desperately needed was “love, love, love,” because “. . . it’s the only thing that there’s too little of.”  A great lyric and even greater truism from the era of Flower Power. I would argue that what the world also needs are people like Hen . . . people of honesty and integrity, men and women who are graced with dignity, class and a dash of  sophistication and panache . . . indeed people who achieve immortality through the very quality of their being.

Happy 109th Dad . . . we’ll be sharing tales about you and Madame at the party next month.  Your seat at the head of the table, looking directly across at you child bride, will be empty . . . but you will be there.

 Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#970: Riddle Me a Riddle

(An introductory note: To the gentleman I spoke with at yesterday’s lecture on the making of “Citizen Kane,” please know that I wish you a successful operation later this week.  R’fuah sh’layma” [a speedy recovery],  KFS)

For more years than I care to remember, my typical workout “uniform” has consisted of a pair of grey fleece sweatpants, thick-soled deep black Sketchers, and an Obama/Biden tee-shirt from the 2008 presidential election emblazoned with the slogan “Yes We Can!” Back in 2008 and  on through 2012, the tee shirt garnered quite a few “thumbs up” gestures from my fellow gym rats. After Trump’s victory in 2016, few people seemed to be bothered by the shirt’s sweaty message. During the pandemic years, I began noting a growing number of “thumbs down” - and even “middle finger” salutes; now that we’ve reached 2024, I am beginning to consider putting my beloved workout shirt into the back of my dresser drawer. It’s gotten that bad . . . and I live in one of the few bright blue counties in Florida!

As I write these words, we are a mere 48 hours away from the first figures hitting the airwaves from snowy, blowy Iowa where the nation’s first caucuses will be winding up.  Whatever meteorological kinks and curves will be thrown into the final tally is beyond anyone’s comprehension.  Suffice it to say that even if, as expected, there will be a lot of citizens remaining home, hunkering close to the fireplace, Donald Trump will emerge victorious.  But regardless of the final statistical count, it is highly likely that Trump’s victory won’t provide him with as much of an  electoral slingshot into the New Hampshire primary as he might have expected even a week ago.  A week ago, network reporters blanketed Iowa, asking voters if, regardless of the non-electoral challenges currently facing Donald Trump that they would vote for him, the answers were overwhelmingly positive.  Most of those interviewed by members of the national media proclaimed that they would vote  for Trump because they trust him, think he is far, far better than anyone else for the economy, knows how to handle world affairs far, far better than Joe Biden, and know that he will be the one person who can keep the United States from a second Civil War.

Unlike voters in past elections, these Republicans aren’t voting for their candidate because of any specific policy proposals, for indeed, outside of pardoning the J6 “hostages,” dismantling the DOJ and FBI, and seeking retribution against anyone and everyone who has ever made their avatar’s life a living hell, there are no policies.  The Trump MAGA campaign is well on its way toward becoming the most negative one in at least the past century.  Instead of  past memorable slogans such as "National Unity. Prosperity. Advancement” (T.R. 1904), "Happy Days are Here Again” (F.D.R. 1932), "The Buck Stops Here” (Truman, 1948), "A Time for Greatness” (J.F.K. 1960) and the aforementioned "Yes We Can” (Obama 2008), what do we have in 2024? It’s "Let’s Finish the Job” for Joe Biden and either "Make America Great Again” or "I Am Your Retribution” for Donald Trump. This pretty much says it all; about as much bipolarity as the Yankees and the Dodgers, the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s, the Jets and the Sharks or, to put my head on the chopping block, between those who act and those merely react.

One of the most telling differences between the nation’s political “approaches” was just summed up in a recently-released Florida Atlantic  University Poll which asked the state’s voters what personality trait they value the most in a presidential candidate. Empathy was dead last, at 4%.  What’s worse is that since the survey’s margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points the true share of people who most want empathy could be close to zero.  Among Democrats, it’s “integrity,” which was the top choice by far, 51%, followed by leadership (20%), intelligence (13%), stability (9%) and empathy (8%).  Among Republicans, the top choice was “leadership,” at 56%, followed by integrity (34%), intelligence (7%), stability (3%) and empathy (0%).  Go ahead; start fearing for the future of the United States.

The Trump campaign, consisting of he who my friend Alan Wald refers to as “The Orange Blob,” and said “Blob’s” 2 sons, are proclaiming over and over and over again that nothing - absolutely NOTHING - has been accomplished on Joe Biden’s watch while, in comparison, everything was just hunky-dory during the days of the Trump Administration.  The litany of accomplishments which Don, Don, Jr., and Eric endlessly stress is that during the Trump Administration, there were “No wars and no terrorists attacks,” both inflation and gas prices were much lower, American leadership was respected around the globe, G-d was in His Heaven and all was right with the world (sorry, Mr. Browning). But since Biden became POTUS (for those who accept this lie, which a majority of Republicans  do not), inflation has gone through the roof, thus wreaking havoc on most retirees retirement accounts; the price of gas and food has skyrocketed, and wars about all over the world. Most, if not all, of these claims can be disproven; they are both factually and morally incorrect.  

Take just a few of these factually absurd claims: in a recent Fox News Town Hall forum in which Donald Trump held center stage (as opposed to being on the debate stage) he asserted: “We had no terrorist attacks at all during my four years.” “I had no wars. I’m the only president in 72 years, I didn’t have any wars.”  For those who want to learn about precisely what did occur during his 4 years in the White House, check out the following Washington Post article.  Then too, there is the Donald Trump, Jr. claim that  there’s not a “single metric” by which “anyone” is better off now than they were three years ago. Say what?  Three years ago – January 2021 – was the deadliest month of the pandemic up to that point – around 80,000 people died from complications connected to Covid-19 that month alone.  CDC data shows that in the week ending 9 January 2021, 25,974 deaths were recorded. For the week ending 9 December 2023, that figure was 1,614. In January 2021, the unemployment rate stood at 6.3 per cent. By last month, that number was 3.7 per cent.

I took a break from completing this essay and went back to researching a clinical trial on a new devise to be used for people diagnosed with Stage 1 diabetes mellitus (caused by inherited factors).  Without getting into the specifics of this trial (they are proprietary), I became rather excited about the prospects of effectively dealing with this costly killer.  Then it dawned on me: one of the greatest things the Biden Administration has accomplished since he took office was the drastic lowering of the price of insulin for the millions of people suffering from diabetes.  Believe it or not _ which MAGA Republicans definitely do not - since 2023, drug manufacturer Eli Lily - with a major push from both the Biden White House and a divided Congress - has lowered the price of Insulin by 70%, which can mean the  difference between life and death for those who suffer. And yet, the Biden campaign has just begun talking about this supreme accomplishment, thus permitting Trump and his MAGA strategists to continue convincing their cult members (many of whom suffer from diabetes) that Biden has accomplished virtually nothing.  These folks know nothing about all the infrastructure programs the Biden/Pelosi-led Democrats have passed which will create hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of good paying jobs in the private sector.    But again, the MAGA Trumpsters refuse to cede a single accomplishment to Biden or the Democrats.  Why?  Because if they did, it might lose them a  couple of votes.

Outside of having a boatload of personal grievances for which he seeks redress, Donald Trump has no platform. Oh, he is still running on building his wall along America’s southern border, repealing the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) “Drill Baby Drill” and hinting at having the U.S. leave NATO. If all of this sounds like the Trump platform from 2016 and 2020, that’s because it is - despite the fact that many things have changed during the first 3 years of the Biden Administration:

• According to a recent Citibank report, “Total gross crude and other liquid exports hit a record of 11.128 million barrels per day, more than the total output of either Russia or Saudi Arabia,” Citi energy analysts wrote on March 1. “U.S. net crude imports fell to lows not seen since the 1950s.”

• According to a recent report from KFF (formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation), “Republican voters are far less interested than Democrats in hearing the candidates talk about the health care law, according to new polling data . . . . Only 32 percent of self-identified Republican voters think it’s very important for candidates to talk about the future of the Affordable Care Act, the poll shows, compared to 70 percent of Democrats. . . . . [Moreover}, opposition to Obamacare is a loser with independents: 62 percent viewed the law favorably.

• According to the Center for Economic Policy and Research’s founder and lead economist Dean Baker “We now have the greatest economy ever. I’m saying that because President Biden won’t, and everyone knows damn well that if Donald Trump was in the White House and we had the same economic situation, he would be boasting about the greatest economy ever all the time. Every Republican politician in the country would be touting the greatest economy ever. And all the political reporters would be writing stories about how the strong economy will make it difficult for the Democrats to beat Trump in the next election.”

These are neither lies nor fabrications . . . unless you are a MAGA devotee who fully believes that Donald Trump is the Second Coming.  Those who are willing to read facts instead of ingest opinions, will find it terribly difficult to understand how the Trump minions can swallow such bilge.  One possible reason is that they are just plain stupid and uneducated.  (Sorry to be so damnably nasty and seemingly superior, but that’s just the way I understand things to be.)

So riddle me this riddle: how are progress and a track record of success against the odds ever going to best retrogression, bald-faced lies and a storied past that never truly existed?  By working our tails off, going to the polls regardless of the weather or roadblocks, and redefining the meaning of just who is a patriotic American.  America is just too precious for us - and for the world - to be taken over by the forces of autocracy and bigotry.  Yes, there is a plague of victimization alive in this country; a plague that can never be cured through clinical research . . . for it is a plague created by the victims themselves.

 Remember: There are just 269 days until Voting Day (November 5, 2024). 

 Copyright©2024 Kurt Franklin Stone

#969: Hallelujah!

                     Leonard Cohen (1934-2016)

Welcome to the year 2024. Generally speaking, the new year brings resolutions aplenty . . . many of which will be broken within the wink of an eye. It’s not that we are being dishonest with ourselves; for many, it’s a lack of resolve. And who can blame the resolution transgressors? We live in extremely frustrating, fearfully uncomfortable and trying times. The fences, hedges and walls which divide people around the world cause many of us to quit watching the evening news and, in its place, crack open a bottle of whatever suits our taste. Peace and understanding, unity and serenity are oh so evasive. HOWEVER, from time to time we find moments of hopefulness and words of love and cheer which can - if we pay attention - act as restoratives.

Yesterday, while attending services for Shabbat (Sabbath), a restorative discovered me . . . rather than the opposite.  (To be honest, I am paraphrasing one of the three women who became b’not mitzvah; she said that they [the three women] did not choose the particular Torah portion [Exodus 1:1-6:1] upon which they would be observing this marvelous rite of passage  but rather, the Torah portion chose them.) How so?  Simply stated this first portion in the book of Exodus (in Hebrew, Sh’mot [שְּׁמוֹת] meaning “names,” deals with 5 profoundly heroic women: the baby Moses’ mother (Yocheved), and sister (Miriam), the Pharaoh’s daughter (Bat’ya) and two midwives, (Shifra and Pua); without these women, there would be no Jews in the world today . . . Quite a portion to be shared by three b’not mitzvah!

At one point in the service, we sang together the 150th - the last - Psalm.  It has no known author (To King David 73 of the 150 Psalms (תְהִילִים - pronounced t’hilim) are ascribed; it is easily the most universal, most unifying of all those poetic praises to G-d.  In this psalm of 6 verses, 13 times we find the words created from the Hebrew root ה-ל-ל (the root means “praise”), from which we get the word “Halleluyah,” literally meaning “G-d be praised.”  (Now mind you, there is a perhaps unintended coincidence here; according to Jewish law, there are precisely 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah. Put 6 verses together with the 13 times the root ה-ל-ל is used and voila!  You get 613.  Brrrr.) During the more than six decades of chanting this psalm in shul, I have been accustomed to a single melody . . . likely the same one my grandfathers (Yussel and Issac) and their grandfathers sang more than 150 years ago. 

But not this time.  For this service, the Cantor (חזנית), Debbie Hafetz, a woman with a voice of gold and a soul of rhodium (the most valuable metal on earth), said we would be singing it to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s song entitled, simply, Hallelujah.  It both knocked my socks off and brought copious tears to my eyes.  Putting these Hebrew words together with Cohen’s emotional musical score was about as restorative a moment as one might hope for in these deeply troubling times.  Let’s explore several versions of this song, using both the original Hebrew words from the Bible,  and Leonard Cohen’s English creation. 

First, Central Synagogue’s Cantor Azi Schwartz singing the original Hebrew text of the 150th Psalm to Leonard Cohen’s melody.  Even if you do not know the words in Hebrew - let alone another language - I think it just might move you.  And, as the French say, n'ayez pas peur de sortir vos mouchoirs: “Don’t be afraid to take out your handkerchiefs.”  

To the best of my knowledge, there are only 2 words in the more than 7,000 tongues spoken on this planet which are the same . . . and both are Hebrew:  AMEN and HALLELUJAH.  The first means something akin to “I AGREE,” the second, as mentioned above “Praised be G-d.”  (According to Jewish oral tradition, AMEN is actually an acronym for the three Hebrew letter aleph (א), mem (מ) and final nun (ן) which stand for ayl melekh ne-ehmahn, meaning “G-d is a faithful King.”  Yes, both are a tad too theistic for some, regardless of their tongue or religious (or lack of)  belief.  But nonetheless, they are the two unifying words which bind us together. 

Leonard Cohen originally wrote lyrics to his Hallelujah (1984).  It easily became his most famous song.  What follows is the legendary guitarist Jeff Buckley singing Cohn’s English lyrics, while accompanying himself on his instrument.

Next, a Hebrew/English version of Cohen’s lyrics as performed by Yechiel Erps, a Chasid with an MS in speech pathology and a great deal of musical talent:

Indeed, this is a universal song with universal meaning.  I would be remiss if I were not to include Cohen’s universal son sung in, amazingly, English, Hebrew and Arabic.  Could there eventually be a hope for peace?

And last, but not least, Cohen's “Halleuljah” in one of his native  languages: Yiddish.  Cohen was born and raised in a family of Orthodox Jews in the wealthy enclave of Westmont, Quebec.  His native languages were French and Yiddish.  Until the  end of his life, despite exploring almost every religion on earth, he remained a practicing Jew, who would forego concerts on Friday nights.  His ideal was what is known in Hebrew as ‘‘pekuakh nefesh,”  repairing the world.  May his epitaph be this song, and may this song, some 3,500 years in the making, be a restorative for a world badly fractured and in need of repair.  For when all is said and done, isn’t this what all Abrahamic religions seek  most?

Can you say - or sing - Hallelujah with meaning?

Copyright©2024, Kurt Franklin Stone

#968: Don't Know Much About History

Political campaigns - especially on the presidential level - are exercises in exhaustion; tense, highly-scripted affairs in which a single slip up, questionable facial expression or obvious misstatement can exact more damage than a 4th-quarter 15-yard penalty or a three-base throwing error in the bottom of the 9th with no outs. Those possessing robust political memories will easily recall that in the 1960 televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon, Richard Nixon’s sweaty upper-lip and generally wan appearance likely lost him the election; ever the showbiz professional, JFK had spent several days soaking up  rays in Hyannis Port and wearing professionally-applied stage makeup prior to the televised debate. By comparison, Nixon looked like a man running a fever.

Then there was 1976, when incumbent POTUS Gerald R. Ford lost his race against Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter when he, Ford, flatly stated “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” (Of course the Soviets did, in fact, occupy much of the region at the time.) Or the 2004 Dean Scream, in which former Vermont Governor Howard Dean emitted a high-volume, high-pitched scream of ebullience (complete with matching body language) while speaking before a group in Iowa.  That scream not only tossed his presidential aspirations on to the trash heap, but essentially brought his national political career to a crashing end.

               The “Dean Scream” (2004)

Indeed, running for political office is not an activity for sissies.  In theory - if not in actual practice - the requisite ingredients for success are knowledge and education; a modicum of grace, charisma; the ability to connect with least part of the electorate; indefatigable drive; the ability to think on one’s feet; and at least the appearance of compassion, humility and charm.  And oh yes, it occasionally helps to have both a platform and a message.  In today’s hyper cyber political world, the platform is, generally speaking, more important to Democrats than Republicans, and visa-versa when it comes to the message.  Unless, of course, one’s platform is an ad nauseum expression of who you or what you are against, while obnoxiously pinning meaningless labels – “Dangerous atheistic Leftists,” “Marxists,” “Socialists,” “Nazis,” or “Wannabe Dictators.” on the other. 

Up until a few days ago, it seemed as if former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley might be the only credible alternative to Donald Trump in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.  Not that she really stood a snowball’s chance in Hades of becoming the party’s nominee; just that she seemed like a a breath of fresh air when compared to the “Man of a Thousand Nasty Nicknames.”  Throughout the sans Trump Republican debates, she came off as poised, easily able to defend herself, reasonably knowledgeable about the issues, charismatic, and not  prone to stepping on her own tongue.  Of course she made it clear that she was a card-carrying conservative, but one with far more compassion and far less craziness than the “leader of the pack.”  Then came last week’s dumber-than-dirt gaff during a town hall forum in New Hampshire, when one of the members of the audience asked her what she believed caused the Civil War:

For those without access to the above YouTube capture, she began her answer with a seemingly humorous quip “Well, don’t come with an easy question.” Then, pausing and pacing the stage, she talked about the role of government, replying that it involved “basically how the government was going to run” and “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do”. She continued with a by-the-book state’s rights opinion: “I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And we will always stand by the fact that I think the government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people, “It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom.” At this point, the questioner said to Governor Haley: “In the year 2023, it’s astonishing to me that you answer that question without mentioning the word ‘slavery.” This prompted a retort from Haley. “What do you want me to say about slavery?” she asked. 

The next day (Thursday 12/28) amid wide reporting of her response and in apparent damage limitation mode, Haley said in a radio interview: “Of course the civil war was about slavery.”

According to the Washington Post, Haley told The Pulse of NH radio show: “I want to nip it in the bud. Yes, we know the Civil War was about slavery. But more than that, what’s the lesson in all this? That freedom matters. And individual rights and liberties matter for all people. That’s the blessing of America. That was a stain on America when we had slavery. But what we want is never relive it. Never let anyone take those freedoms away again.”

 My immediate response to Haley’s comments on “the role of government . . . and the rights of the people” was “Hey Nikki, you want government out of the lives of individuals . . . unless they are women wishing to control their own bodies, members of the LGBT+ community, impoverished individuals or families, anyone in need of assistance, or just generally poor.” This line of reasoning - or lack thereof - intends to say that being gay, poor, a woman who has been raped and a host of other things is a matter of free will. Sorry Nikki, that’s simply not the case.

                   Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

The only major Republican to slam Haley’s response to the question of whether slavery had anything to do with the Civil War was, not surprisingly, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who began 2023 as a rising star in the Republican firmament, and ended it running a distant third. DeSantis was quick to criticize Haley at a campaign stop in Iowa campaign stop Thursday morning, telling reporters that she, Haley, is "not a candidate that's ready for prime time. . . .The minute that she faces any kind of scrutiny, she tends to cave." DeSantis said. He then continued with: "I think that that's what you saw yesterday. Not that difficult to identify and acknowledge the role slavery played in the Civil War, and yet that seemed to be something that was really difficult."

The Florida governor, has been instrumental in radically altering how the Civil War, the eventual abolition of slavery and much American history is to be taught in the Sunshine State. Among his more unreconstructed lesson plans for Florida’s students is teaching that “in many instances, slaves developed skills which, in some instances[sic], could be applied for their personal benefit." Just the other day members of his overwhelmingly conservative legislature begun pushing legislation that will fine and punish local leaders for removing memorials to the Confederacy.

 What’s going on here? Do Nikki Haley, who grew up and was educated in South Carolina (the first state to secede from the Union), and Governor DeSantis, (who earned a degree in history from Yale in 2001), really know so little about American history (among other things)? If that is so, we have every right to assume their favorite song is Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World, which begins with the words:

Don't know much about History
Don't know much Biology
Don't know much about a Science book
Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be 

 If so, than the “You” that Cooke’s lyrics are aimed would have to be the MAGA wing of the Republican Party.  

Outside of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Representatives Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, about-to-become former Representative Ken Buck and about-to-become former Senator Mitt Romney, most of Donald Trump’s Cabinet and the founder, donors and members of the Lincoln Project, (who has already endorsed President Biden), few prominent, office-holding Republicans have spoken out - let alone found fault with - the putative head of their party.  And it’s not because Trump is, unbeknownst to the rest of us, a top-notch leader with a sound mind and a solid record of accomplishment . . . outside of passing the largest tax-cut for the hyper-wealthy American history.  No, for behind closed doors, the men and women who remain publicly silent, likely know precisely what kind of toxic political excrescence he really is.  By their silence they are putting an overwhelming amount of cowardice on display; seemingly preferring a "leader” who bills himself as "your retribution,” over a man like Joe Biden who, although far from perfect, at least has a fifty—year political track record of being on the side of the angels. 

What do all these poltroons of political mediocrity expect in exchange for their silence?  Getting reelected and then sitting on their fat derrieres doing virtually nothing for the nation for another two or four years?  Filling up their saddlebags for the day when they return to the private sector?  They are the shame of the nation, who collectively seek to prove that Sinclair Lewis was wrong: “It Can Happen Here.”  (Then too, perhaps the illusion to the Nobel Prize-winning Lewis is lost on them; they don’t know much about literature either.)    

                                                                           Don't know much about geography
                                                                           Don't know much trigonometry                         
                                                                           Don't know much about algebra
                                                                           Don't know what a slide rule is for

                                                                           But I do know one and one is two
                                                                        And if this one could be with you
                                                                   What a wonderful world this would be 
                                                                             (Written by: Herb Alpert, Lou Adler, Sam Cooke)

It’s a great song . . . when sung by Sam Cooke, but a horrifying reality when hummed by Trump’s legionnaires. 

 Copyright2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#967: A Few Questions for Yeshua bar Yosef haNotzri (Jesus the Son of Joseph the Nazarite)

         Jesus of Nazareth - as he possibly looked 

First and foremost, Reb. Yeshua, please permit me to wish you a חג מולד שמח (chag molahd samayach) - Hebrew for “Merry Christmas.” I know that for some, it’s got to seem a bit we outré, perhaps even an act of chutzpah, for a rabbi to be addressing himself to Jesus, the son of Joseph, on December 25th. But that’s the way things go. Believe me, this blog is neither an attempt at effrontery, nor a diatribe against the religion (נַצְרוּת - natzrut - Hebrew for "Christianity) which bears your name.  And while we’re at it, please do pardon me for occasionally translating a Hebrew word or expression into English.  I am fully aware that as a lifelong Jew, your father, Yosef, would have taught you to pray in the Holy Tongue. But from what I’ve learned over the years, you like most Jews today, didn’t speak it: your lay tongue was either Aramaic or Koine Greek.  

Today, Christians all over the world celebrate your birthday, despite the fact that the precise date of your conception, let alone birth, are at best, mere guesswork.  Having annotated the Constantinople manuscript of seder olam rabbah (“The Great Order of the World” by the 2nd century tanna R. Yose ben Halafta) for my rabbinic thesis back in the late 1970s, I remember the great difficulties besieging ancient scholars on trying to figure out how old the world was, and to fix an historically accurate date for your birth.  The best they could settle on was not based on the Gregorian (i.e. January-December) calendar, aaand for a simple reason: that calendar did not go into popular usage until 1582 C.E. following the papal bull Inter gravissimas (Latin for “In the Gravest Concern”) issued by Pope Gregory XIII. In your time and place, you and your neighbors would have been using the Jewish calendar and as such, the date of your birth would have been, likely, the 5th or 6th of the month Cheshvan in the year 3756. 

The luach (the Jewish calendar) is a complicated hodge-podge wherein the years go according to the sun (solar) and the months by the moon (lunar). When held up against the utter consistency of Pope Gregory’s calendar, your birthday falls on a different day (and sometimes, different month) each year. In 2023, the 5th/6th of Cheshvan occurs on either December 20 or 21; next year it will be either the 6th or 7th of November.  Moreover, nowhere in the Christian Bible (which Christians refer to as the “New” Testament) is there a single reference or mention about observing Christmas on December 25; this would not come about for several centuries.    

During a long life of study and reflection, I have managed to make my way through the Christian Bible from cover to cover - sometimes in Aramaic, sometimes in Latin or Greek, and always in both English and Hebrew.  In this way I could discover and compare for myself the similarities of theme, narrative structure and worldview with the Hebrew Bible (in Hebrew, the תנ"ך [Tamakh], in English, the “Old” Testament).  It has also permitted me to see the vast differences between the 2 holy texts.

Among the greatest - and most obvious - similarities are the two tomes’ stress on moral action: on feeding the hungry and freeing the captive, of not doing unto others that which we would never want done to ourselves (that’s the decidedly Jewish take) and doing justice, loving mercy and living our lives with humility. It never ceases to amaze - and deeply trouble - me how so many self-identified “Christian Nationalists,” people who firmly believe that the Holocaust never happened (but nonetheless should once again be carried out), seek to do it in your name.  Or that those who push for the dismemberment of programs that feed the starving, heal the sick or provide shelter to the homeless, are justifying their civic cruelty and Dickensian hardheartedness in your name - by referring to themselves as “G-d fearing Christians.”  I guess they have never read or contemplated your words: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” 

Among the greatest - and again, most obvious - differences between the two testaments are how the two texts deal with the universality of the differing religious traditions.  in Judaism, there is next to nothing said about going out and converting other people to the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Oh yes, we do have a complete set of laws and guidelines for bringing people into the fold . . . for those who of their own free will seek to convert.  Our feeling has long been that Judaism is the best religion there is .  . . for Jews.  On the contrary - and as I have come to understand it - going out and bringing new converts into the fold vis-à-vis many approaches to Christianity is akin to a mitzvah - a religious commandment.  As Jews, we have studiously avoided spending our time growing our religion.

Another great difference between Judaism and Christianity is that, in the main, we are far more devoted to the deed, rather than the creed. We don’t follow G-d’s commandments for the sake of gaining eternal life; we follow them because it is the right thing to do.

For as long as I can remember, I have wondered how it is that many Christians - of many different approaches, sects and stripes - could carry out horrific acts of hatred, murder, mayhem and torture in yourname; you, Yeshu bar Yosef haNotzri, who lived virtually every minute of your life as a Jew. “Don’t they know?” I can still hear in my 6- or 8-year-old voice “that Jesus was a Jew?’” It always troubled me that every painting or representation of Jesus I ever saw (which is actually against strict Jewish law) portrayed you as a blond, blue-eyed Aryan . . . looking ever so much like Max Von Sydow, Jeffrey Hunter, Victor Garber (who is both Jewish and gay) and Willem Dafoe. 

Today, I wonder how many people would opt not to sit next to a person on an airplane if he looked like the picture at the beginning of this essay.  (That computer-generated photo is An image of Jesus created by Richard Neave, a former forensic artist from the University of Manchester, using forensic investigation methods and archaeological evidence.)

Leet’s face it: the historic Yeshu bar Yosef looked a lot darker than, say, Joaquin Phoenix, who hails from a Hungarian-Jewish family and played You in 2018’s Mary Madelene.  Racism and anti-Semitism are rife in our age, and much of it is being done in your name.  And herein lies my question.

Dear Yeshu: what in the how do you cope with a diabolical neo-Nazi like the 25-year old Nick Fuentes, who vows to dish out the “death penalty” for Jewish people if Donald Trump is re-elected.    This is the same Nick Fuentes who not so long ago dined at Mar-a-Lago with “Ye” (rapper Kanye West) and received plaudits from the putative Republican nominee for presidency in 2024. My question here is how are we supposed to convince those who really, truly believe they are your most fervent followers that seeking to destroy the Jewish people means that they wish to destroy you?  How can you or your modern-day disciples come to understand that they are spending so many of their waking hours organizing and urging against the very principles of love, tolerance and acceptance upon which you preached. You never asked anyone to deify you, but to merely follow your teachings. Indeed, how can we help you to safeguard your people from destruction?

Fortunately, there is a group called Evangelicals for Democracy, which works tirelessly to communicate the fact that: “As evangelicals, we believe that protecting democracy is being obedient to Jesus’ commandment to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” Therefore, we believe that every person in our society has an equal voice and representation in their governance. We also believe that access to democracy is undercut by “Christian nationalism,” which confuses the Gospel with the American state and promotes identity politics.” They are doing their best to spread this noxious concept of identity politics and push the likes of Nick Fuentes, Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Green and their trolls off the highway of American politics.

 Dear Yeshu bar Yosef: We neither have to accept everything you said nor everything you believed in order to join hands with you in a quest to rid our nation and our times against the scourge of hatred. For when all is said and done, we are family . . .

Wishing you and yours a Happy, Merry Everything!

Copyright©2023 Kurt F. Stone

#966 Ken Paxton: Malefactor Of the Year

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

   Trust me: I would be far, far happier writing a piece about Taylor Swift, Time Magazine’s “Woman of the Year,” or Shohei Ohtani, the “second coming of Babe Ruth,” who just signed a 10-year. $700,000,000 contract with my (and my sister Erica’s) Los Angeles Dodgers, then one about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom I am designating the “Malefactor of the Year.” This title, akin to calling him “Paxton the Terrible,” is his lifetime achievement award for last year, this year, and unquestionably next year as well.

   For most Americans not living in the Lone Star State, the 60-year old Texas A.G. Ken Paxton (that’s him on the left) has, until just a a couple of days ago, been as unknown as Rob Bonta, Ashley Moody, Lynn Fitch or Michelle Henry, respectively, A.G.s of California, Florida, Mississippi and Pennsylvania.  Unlike the vast majority of America’s state attorneys general, Paxton has made quite a name for himself for mostly the wrong reasons. As but one  example, on December 8, 2022, Paxton sued the states of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, where certified results showed President-elect Joe Biden the victor over President Donald Trump, alleging a variety of unconstitutional actions in their presidential balloting, arguments that had already been rejected in other courts.  In Texas v. Pennsylvania, Paxton asked the United States Supreme Court to invalidate the states' sixty-two electoral votes. Because the suit was cast as a dispute between states, the Supreme Court had original jurisdiction, although it often declines to hear such suits.  This time, SCOTUS decided to take a look-see; within 3 days, they shot down Paxton’s suit, making him a bit of a legal laughing stock.

Ken Paxton served 5 terms in the Texas Legislature (2003-2013) and 2 years in the Texas State Senate (2013-2015), before declaring his candidacy for A.G. During his years in the legislature he developed a reputation for being a hard-core conservative of the Tea Party stripe, and a full-throated Christian Nationalist, whose views and votes were based on his religious principles. Along with his wife Angela Allen Paxton (who currently serves as the Majority Leader of the Texas Senate), the popular political team helped to found Stonebriar Community Church, a Christian evangelical megachurch, in Frisco, Texas. On January 5 2015, Ken Paxton was sworn in as the 51st Attorney General of Texas, a position to which he was reelected in 2018 and 2022 - in which he beat his Democratic opponent by slightly more than 10 points.

As A.G., Ken Paxton has developed among voters a “you either love him or hate him” attitude. Devoutly, rabidly anti-abortion, he gave his employees a paid vacation day to "celebrate" the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and sought to block rules from the US Health and Human Services Department that would require hospitals to provide abortions to women when the procedure is necessary to save their lives. In 2018 Paxton initiated a lawsuit seeking to have the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) ruled unconstitutional in its entirety. Three years earlier (2015), Paxton created a human trafficking unit within the AG office. In 2019, he convinced Texas lawmakers to more than quadruple the human trafficking unit's annual funding. The year after, the unit did not secure a single human trafficking conviction and only four in 2020.

In 2018, Paxton falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants had committed over 600,000 crimes since 2011 in Texas. PolitiFact said that it had debunked the numbers before, and that the numbers exceeded the state's estimates by more than 400%. In October 2020, seven of Paxton's top aides published a letter to the office's Director of Human Resources, accusing Paxton of improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other crimes, and said they had provided information to law enforcement and asked them to investigate. The Associated Press reported that the allegations involved Paxton illegally using his office to benefit real estate developer Nate Paul, who had donated $25,000 to Paxton's 2018 campaign.

But things were to get even worse for Ken Paxton: The Associated Press also reported that the allegations include the claim that Paxton had an extramarital affair with a woman, and that he had later advocated for that woman to be hired by Paul's company, World Class. Mr. Paul acknowledged employing the woman but denied that he had done so at Paxton's behest. Then, four of the former members of the Texas AG's Office sued the Office of the Attorney General, alleging that Paxton had fired them for reporting misconduct to law enforcement, a form of illegal retaliation under the state's Whistleblower Act. Paxton countersued, claiming that they hadn’t pursued their case in a lawful manner; the Texas Supreme Court and a court of appeals. both agreed that the 4 employees had done things correctly and overturned Paxton’s claim. He was fined $3.3 million and then tried to get the state to use taxpayer funds to pay the settlement; this too was overturned.

In spring 2023, the Texas House passed a bill of impeachment against Paxton, citing 16 separate charges. It was also decided that Paxton’s wife, the Texas Senate Majority Leader, had to recuse herself from the trial. After much back and forth between Paxton his attorneys, the State of Texas and the Texas Bar, Ken Paxton was acquitted on all 16 impeachment charges by the senate on September 23, 2023.

But the worst of Ken Paxton was yet to hit the surface . . . that which would make him a truly reviled person, both in the United States and much of the so-called “civilized world.”

But before we get to the latest and - in my opinion - the worst in the man I choose to name the “Malefactor of the Year,” a few words about the two people I’d greatly prefer to be writing about: singer/songwriter/billionaire philanthropist Taylor Swift and Shohei Ohtani who, barring serious injury, will likely be named the greatest (if not the richest) baseball player of all time.

To be perfectly honest, until I read about Taylor Swift being named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” she was just the name of a celebrity, nothing more, nothing less. (n.b. From its inception in 1927 until 1999, the award which Ms. Talyor wonwas called Time’s Man of the Year.” During these 72 years, only 3 women achieved this status: Wallace Simpson [1936], Queen Elizabeth II [1952] and Corazon Aquino [1986]. Since 1999 Melinda Gates [2005], Angela Merkel [2015] Greta Thunberg [2019] and Kamala Harris [jointly with Joe Biden in 2020] have had the honor bestowed upon them.. And now, in 2023, Taylor Swift.)

I have never knowingly heard a Taylor Swift song, and certainly cannot name even one. However, in performing research for this piece, I have discovered that she is all but universally considered to be a top-flight singer and songwriter, with 10 studio albums, 10 Grammys and more than 50 million album sales as of 2019 and 78 billion streams as of 2021. She is also the highest-grossing female touring act of all time. She is a world-class philanthropist who has made literally tens-of-dozens of donations of more than $1 million to various disaster relief projects and has paid for medical care for many of her concert-going fans. Swift is a self-made billionaire who has invested her earnings wisely in both people and property (which includes the Samuel Goldwyn estate at 1200 Laurel Lane in Beverly Hills). And oh yes, as of earlier this year, she is dating Kansas City Chiefs all-pro wide receiver Travis Kelce.

Since the day I first heard that the Dodgers were going to be moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles (it must have been late 1957), I have, as we say in L.A., “been bleeding Dodger Blue.” And now, with the signing of two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, we are deeper than royal. Imagine that: he’s going to be making $700 million over the next 10 years. Can any athlete be worth so much money just for playing a game? I mean, if he merely has an average (at least for him) season in 2024, he will be earning $522,388.00 per game, which is also $165,485.00 per at bat or, if he is merely pitching, $727,266.00 per inning. And to think, when Babe Ruth was at the height of his glory (1927-28), he only made $70,000.00, which is $1,237,756.90 in 2023 dollars (minus, of course, sales of merchandise, advertising, etc.). When asked if he realized that he, “The Sultan of Swat,” made more money in 1927 than President Coolidge Calvin Coolidge, he supposedly answered, “Well, I had a better season than he did.” (Actually, in 1927, President Coolidge was paid $75,000.00)

In answer to the question can any athlete be worth so much money just for playing a game?” the answer is “Yes!” The Dodgers are owned by Guggenheim Partners, whose board includes Mark Walter (the team’s CEO), Magic Johnson, Stan Kasten, and Tennis legend Billie Jean King. They didn’t get to be that rich by throwing money away. Obviously, they went over the figures and determined that Ohtani was worth $700 million to them . . . in increased ticket sales, cable television and network rates and assorted paraphernalia. For that, they land, as mentioned above, a young (29 years old this past July 5th)man who just may turn out to be the greatest player of all time. And . . . he’s handsome, very well-spoken (in Japanese and increasingly, English), and is a flawless gentleman. And by the way, his nickname is “Shotime” - how perfect for Hollywood.

We wind up this week’s piece by briefly discussing that which Texas A.G. Ken Paxton - as well as Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick will long be remembered for standing in the way of Kate Cox, a 31-year-old native of Dallas to undergo an abortion. Cox had petitioned a state court this month for an exemption from the state’s strict laws to receive an abortion once it was determined that her 20-week-old fetus was diagnosed with full trisomy 18 (Edwards Syndrome). Life expectancy for children diagnosed with Edwards syndrome is short due to several life-threatening complications of the condition. Children who survive past their first year may face severe intellectual challenges. It can also, in some cases, prove fatal to the mother. Mrs. Cox’s doctors argued that carrying the fetus to term and giving birth via Caesarian section could be dangerous, possibly resulting in her losing the ability to have children in the future.

Texas District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble gave Cox a temporary restraining order this past Thursday, giving her, husband and her doctor immunity from prosecution to perform an abortion procedure. For a few moments, it looked like Mrs. Cox and her “team” could breathe a sigh of relief. But within less than an hour, Ken Paxton appealed to the Texas State Supreme Court, asking the court to halt the lower court’s ruling. In his appeal, Mr. Paxton urged the court to act “with all due speed,” and noted that and wrote that if an abortion was allowed, “Nothing can restore the unborn child’s life that will be lost as a result.” The court did act “with all due speed”: the very next day, the Texas Supremes said that, “without regard to the merits” of the arguments on either side, it had issued an administrative stay in the case, to give itself more time to issue a final ruling.

P:axton’s appeal to the Texas Supreme Court in Ms. Cox’s case followed his letter to three Houston hospitals where he warned that Dr. Karsan (Ms. Cox’s personal OB-GYN) is authorized to admit patients and could perform the abortion, was hereby warned that the judge’s order would not shield them from eventual prosecution or civil lawsuits. Lawyers for Dr. Karsan have said in legal filings that she believes her patient’s abortion is medically necessary to preserve her health and future fertility.

But regardless of what a board-certified OB-GYN says, Ken Paxton feels he knows better. As an ultra-conservative Republican, he demands that the government stay the hell out of people’s lives . . . except in any and all matters of sex, marriage, giving birth and what they read. And despite the fact that according to Texas law, there are exceptions which have been carved out in anti-abolition legislation when pregnancy is the result of rape or incest . . . or when the life of either the fetus or the mother is in jeopardy. According to “Dr.” Paxton, he does not deem carrying a 22-week-old fetus who has been diagnosed by real physicians with Edwards Syndrome is nothing to worry about. “Don’t worry about whether or not giving birth will kill you or make you infertile; don’t give a moment’s thought that you are going to give birth to an infant that will likely be blind, deaf and dumb, incapable of movement, experiencing excruciating pain and likely dying within anywhere between sixth months and a year. If and when it dies, that is just G-d’s will.”

What the Malefactor Of the Year is hoping for is that by the time the state Supreme Court finally hands down its ruling (whatever it may be), Kate Cox’s pregnancy will have proceeded well beyond the legal time limit for any abortion to take place.

In any event, Ken Paxton will have earned even more street cred with his Christian Nationalist crowd, thus allowing him to continue living a godly - if infuriatingly - immoral - life.

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

PLEASE NOTE THAT JUST BEFORE POSTING THIS, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO REPORTED THAT KATE COX AND HER HUSBAND HAD LEFT TEXAS TO SEEK FURTHER MEDICAL ATTENTION OUTSIDE OF TEXAS. PRECISELY WHERE IS NOT YET KNOWN. KFS

#965: Oh What a Week . . .

Without question, the past 168 hours have contained more news stories and headlines of historical importance, drama, tragedy and trepidation than any in recent memory. Some of these stories and headlines concern people, places and events that will be prominently noted in history books so long as people read and write history. Other stories and events will ultimately become nothing more than mere historic asterisks like 3’7” Eddie Gaedel, the smallest player to appear in a Major League Baseball game. (Gaedel, who had signed a one-day contract with the St. Louis Browns, walked on 4 pitches tossed by Detroit Tiger southpaw Bob Cain, and then was pulled for pinch runner Jim Delsing. The only people who remember Gaedel and that August 19, 1951 stunt some 72 after his single at-bat, are undoubtedly the geekiest of baseball aficionados.)

This past week (168 hours) has seen the passing of Dr. Henry Kissinger, America’s first Jewish Secretary of State at age 100. Unlike Gaedel, Dr. Kissinger will be long remembered. (Actually, America’s first Jewish Secretary of State was Judah P. Benjamin, known to many historians as “The Brains of the Confederacy.” The one-time planter, slave-owner, America’s highest-paid attorney and United States senator from Louisiana, Benjamin variously served as Jefferson Davis’ Attorney General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State; at war’s end, he wound up his professional life moving to England, where he read British law and rose to become Queen’s Counsel. He is buried at the famed Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, not far from the graves of Jim Morrison, Marcel Marceau and Edith Piaf.)

Without question, Dr. Kissinger was a titan. Over a span of nearly 60 years, he served, advised and counseled 9 different presidents and even more Secretaries of State. Considering the vast differences of these men and women (Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton) in terms of intelligence, experience, worldliness and weltanschauung (world-view), this is a rather remarkable record. On the plus side, Kissinger, perhaps even more than Richard Nixon, was responsible for bringing China and America closer together; back then it was called “Ping Pong Diplomacy. Unquestionably, his biggest, most grievous negative would be the secret bombing of then-neutral Cambodia during the Vietnam War. During that war, Kissinger and then-President Nixon ordered clandestine bombing raids on Cambodia, in an effort to flush out Viet Cong forces in the eastern part of the country.

It should never be forgotten that the US dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on Cambodia from 1965-1973. (For context, the Allies dropped just over 2 million tons of bombs during the whole of World War II, including the bombs that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki.). Until the end of his life, Kissinger maintained that the bombing was aimed at the Vietnamese army inside Cambodia, not at the country itself. The number of people killed by those bombs is not known, but estimates range from 50,000 to upwards of 150,000.

We shall not - G-d willing - see his kind again for a long, long time.

This week also sees the passing of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to sit on the United States Supreme Court. A rancher’s daughter from Arizona, she earned a law degree at Stanford, tried to get a job after the passing the California Bar, only to be told that perhaps she should lower her sights and look for work as a legal secretary.  Eventually, she became an icon for future generations of women in the law. A legal conservative - though not as we think of them today, she served during a crucial period in American law — when abortion, affirmative action, sex discrimination and voting rights were on the docket.

Although William H. Rehnquist, her Stanford Law School classmate, served as chief justice during much of her tenure, the Supreme Court during that crucial period was often called the “O’Connor court,” and Justice O’Connor was referred to, quite accurately, as “the most powerful woman in America.” Very little could happen without Justice O’Connor’s support when it came to the polarizing issues on the court’s docket, and the law regarding affirmative action, abortion, voting rights, religion, federalism, sex discrimination and other hot-button subjects was basically what Sandra Day O’Connor thought it should be.

That the middle ground she looked for tended to be the public’s preferred place as well was no mere coincidence, given the close attention she paid to current events and the public mood.  Among her most important decisions were:

• In Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation v. EPA (2004) she said the Environmental Protection Agency could step in and take action to reduce air pollution under the Clean Air Act when a state conservation agency fails to act.

• In Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran (2002) O’Connor upheld state laws giving people the right to a second doctor’s opinion if their HMOs tried to deny them treatment.

• In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) she broke with Chief Justice Rehnquist and other opponents of a woman’s right to choose as part of a 5-4 majority in affirming Roe v. Wade.

• In Hunt v. Cromartie (2001) Justice O’Connor affirmed the right of state legislators to take race into account to secure minority voting rights in redistricting.

Returning to the land of the living, this past week had bit of a unique first: a televised prime-time “debate” between a sitting governor and presidential candidate and another governor who may become a presidential candidate in another 4 years. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and California’s Gavin Newsom spent their ninety minutes on a well-designed stage taking shots at one another about banning books, who has the greatest tax burden (Florida has no income tax), the price of homeowners insurance (Florida’s is the highest in the nation) and who gets along best with Disney. DeSantis’ major advantage was having Fox News’ Entertainer Sean Hannity throwing him softball question whenever Newsome backed the smaller man into a corner.  One positive thing to say about the two: man, do they have great heads of hair!

At one point, as both men were talking over each other and the volume got louder, Newsom played his best Joe Cool imitation, threw his hands open, turned to DeSantis and said with a smile, "Hey, Ron, relax." The one thing DeSantis may have learned from the evening’s 90-minute tussle is that it’s next to impossible to get under the skin of a man who has nothing to lose. As soon as the 90 minutes were up, a panel of Fox hosts spent hours declaring him the obvious and overwhelming winner, while the major cable outlets decided not to report on it until the next day. When they did, a clear majority yawningly gave Newsom a collective thumbs-up.

Donald Trump spent last week further outlining what he has in the works for the next 4 years should he be elected. Besides making personal loyalty to him the key qualification for getting a position in the federal government (hasn’t he ever heard of the Civil Service?) and reversing the “weaponization” of both the DOJ and DOD, the FPOTUS doubled down on his calls to replace the Affordable Care Act, (“Obamacare”) if he’s elected president again. “I don’t want to terminate Obamacare, I want to REPLACE IT with MUCH BETTER HEALTHCARE. Obamacare Sucks!!!” Trump said in a pair of late-night posts on social media.

It seems that he has gotten his hand on an old speech . . . or has forgotten that back when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate they failed to do precisely what he is once again promising to do. Interestingly, only a handful of prominent Republicans have voiced anything even approaching approval of the plan. The reason? The ACA now scores highly with most Americans. As Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., reminded his colleagues just the other day, reopening the ACA fight in 2025 would require Republicans to craft a replacement plan ahead of time, which they have never done.

Over on Capitol Hill, President Biden’s son Hunter played a masterful game of political chess with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, which has been misspending tons of time and taxpayer money in their attempt to impeach President Biden.  Hunter’s attorneys “castled” Committee Chair James Comer by telling the Kentucky Republican that their client, whom the committee recently subpoenaed (along with Hunter’s former business associate Rob Walker, and the president’s brother James Biden) would be glad to appear . . . but only if the hearings are held in public.  Needless to say, Comer, his committee colleagues and a clear majority of the Republican caucus are dead set against the demand.  Why?  Because the public would quickly learn that when it comes to real, honest to G-d charges against the Bidens, in the immortal words of Gertrude Stein, "There’s no there there.”  In a letter to Comer, Hunter Biden’s attorney,  Abbe Lowell. wrote: “We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public.”  Comer et al realize that Hunter and Abbe Lowell have got ‘em in checkmate.  They just cannot abide by it.  Of course, this does not mean that they will discontinue the current game of political chess; they’ll likely switch to political checkers.  Counselor Lowell, by the way, will be remembered a lot longer than Chairman Comer . . . and for good reason.

We conclude with the one former member of Congress who in future years, like little Eddie Gaedel (number “1/8”) will likely only be remembered by political geeks: the expelled fabulist, George Anthony Devolder Santos. By a vote of 311 (206 Dems., 105 Reps.) to 114 (2 Dems., 112 Reps.), Santos became just the sixth member of Congress to be shown the door . . . and likely the third of this group to wind up being incarcerated. In many regards, Santos is the Platonic Absolute of a MAGAite: venal, hypocritical, mendacious to the  max, larcenous, a moral albino (you figure it out) and possessing all 9 signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  I mean, lying is one thing in politics.  But lying for the sake of Botox, Ferragamo and Hèrmes?

As Vanessa Williams noted in a New York Times essay:

In the end, it may have been the luxury goods that brought down George Santos.

Not the lies about going to Baruch College and being a volleyball star or working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Not the claims of being Jewish and having grandparents who were killed in the Holocaust and a mother who died of cancer as result of 9/11. (Not true, it turned out.) Not the fibs about having founded an animal charity or owning substantial real estate assets. None of the falsehoods that have been exposed since Mr. Santos’s election last year. After all, he did survive two previous votes by his peers to expel him from Congress, one back in May, one earlier in November.

 I for one am not sure what ultimately brought him  down . . . or made enough of his fellow Republicans (though not a majority of them) to finally show him the door.  Perhaps it was the looming not-too-distant presence of the 2024 elections; an unvoiced  fear of having to answer questions about his presence in their caucus . . . along with questions about their caucus’ all-but-invisible agenda.  Under normal circumstances (if they still exist), a disgraced former member of Congress with a penchant for publicity could look forward to eventually making a fortune on Fox, starting his own podcast or radio talk-show, or having a ghost write him a tell-all book while  spending his hefty advance on G-d knows what.  This probably won’t happen, because soon, he, like his beloved leader, is  going to be spending his every waking hour (and what cash he can put his hands on) proclaiming his innocence in federal court. 

Who knows: perhaps future generations will remember George Anthony Devolder Santos for having been Donald J. Trump’s cellmate in prison . . . 

Oh what a week! 

Copyright2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#964: I Never Met a Banned Book I Didn't Want to Read

Nearly 2 years ago (January 2, 2022, to be precise), I posted essay #873 entitled What do Huckleberry Finn, Holden Caulfield and Harry Potter All Have in Common? In that post, I discussed (railed against, to be honest) Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ push to ban innumerable books from public school libraries which, in his opinion, included dangerously “woke” and “immoral” characters, themes and words. At the time, he was convinced that he could easily defeat former POTUS Trump in the Republican primary by placing himself far to the right . . . on such issues as 6-week abortion bans, outlawing the teaching of Critical Race Theory, and anything that smacked of Woke philosophy.

To me, it is axiomatic that those who decry the danger of teaching “CRT” in public schools (which it almost never has been), principles of WOKE (which most of those who fear it haven’t any idea of its definition or meaning) or of banning hundreds of “dangerous,” “pornographic” or “immoral” books (which few have ever read) are living on another planet.  Somewhere long ago I read an aphorism which states that “A truly great library contains something in it to offend EVERYBODY.”  Having been raised to be a perpetual reader of classics, satires, plays and as much of the  world’s truly great literature as possible (with brief forays into the  likes of P.G. Wodehouse, Raymond Chandler and David Lodge), I have also read the vast majority of books that have been banned going all the way back to the first, Thomas Morton’s 1637 anti-Puritan work New English Canaan, in which he critiqued and attacked Puritan customs so harshly that even the more progressive New English settlers disapproved (and eventually banned) it. Hey, when a book compares you to a crustacean, it’s unlikely you’ll be begging the author for a sequel!  (For those who ask where I ever find the time to read so many books in consideration of my jam-packed schedule, I always answer with a chuckle, It’s one of the only benefits of having Crohn’s Disease!”  For those who have no idea what this means, you may want to familiarize yourself with its symptomology).

So what leads me to return to this topic once again? Has anything truly changed over the past 23 months? Well, yes and no. Here in Florida - the land of sunshine and political insanity - the number of books removed from public school libraries has grown exponentially. In Hernando County, north of Tampa, six picture books were recently removed from school libraries including the late National Medal of Arts winner Maurice Sendak’s classic In the Night Kitchen ("Milk in the batter! Milk in the batter! We bake cake and nothing’s the matter!"), and Caldecott-Honor winner David Shannon’s classic No David! Why? For the simple reason that both books have illustrations that show kids’ naked bottoms, or in one case, a goblin’s bare derriere.  Shame, shame!  Can you imagine all the harm it would do for a 6-year old to realize that people - even goblins - have tucheses?

Then there's Collier County in southwest Florida, where more than 300 - count -’em 300 - novels have been taken from the shelves, packed up and put into storage.  Among the forbidden 300 are works by such monsters, atheists and pederasts as Ernest Hemmingway, Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Flannery O’Connor, Ayn Rand, Leo Tolstoy and Alice Walker. 

A confession: I am currently finishing my second reading of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (which is banned from some libraries), and then diving into the literary wonders of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, which is banned throughout school libraries in many parts of the United States.  The oh-so-moral harridans of Moms for Liberty need not worry about 10-year olds becoming infected with Anna – one of the first truly liberated women in all Western literature; I cannot imagine too many youngsters will put up with reading any novel of nearly 900 pages that doesn’t star Harry Potter.  

Governor DeSantis has criticized what he calls a “book ban hoax,” but PEN America (founded way back in 1922) said school book bans are on the rise nationally, and that in the 2022-23 school year Florida led the national and was responsible for 40% of them.  A Florida law (HB1467) passed last year by the state’s  Legislature and signed by Gov. DeSantis requires the Florida Department of Education to publish a list of all books objected to by parents and removed in any Florida school district.  The department urged all districts to consult the list.  

It appears to be working; parents are consulting the list and then contacting their local school board in order to have even more books banned. In Clay County (Northeast Florida) a father who leads a group called “No Left Turn in Education,” - has filed hundreds of book objections and told the state he plans to object to no less than 3,600 more.  All those who believe he has read all these books please raise your hand (the right one, not the left).

Before you get suicidal and start contemplating jumping off the front lawn, please read on; it just might be that the book-banners and staunch moralists have gone too far, and are finally beginning to be taken to task by the voting public.

• A Brevard County (East-central Florida) School Board member, backed by Moms for Liberty proposed removing all the books on the Florida list; fortunately, this brought out a lot of angry citizens to a board meeting; the proposal was quashed by a vote of 3-2. 

• A Pennsylvania school board that consistently engaged in banning books and Pride flags, as well as prohibiting transgender athletes from playing on sports teams, managed to slip a last-minute item into their final meeting before leaving office; hastily awarding a $700,000 exit package to the superintendent who supported their agenda. But the Democratic majority that swept the conservative Moms For Liberty slate out of office, hopes to block the unusual — likely illegal — payout and bring calm to the Central Bucks School District, whose affluent suburbs and bucolic farms near Philadelphia have been roiled by infighting for quite some time.  

• While reporting on various “off-year” elections held earlier this month, most political commentators and analysts owed the Democrat’s success to voter concern and anger over the Supreme Courts’ overturning of Rowe v. Wade; about how states with pro-choice amendments on the ballot played a major role in Democratic victories. What many of these same analysts and commentators missed was, at least to my way of thinking, an even bigger and potentially more important story:  the number of Moms for Liberty and Project 1776 -endorsed candidates who went down to defeat in state after state. These progressive successes came mainly in races for local boards of education and state legislatures.  This is big news.

• According to the American Federation of Teachers, groups like these lost close to 70% of the races where they made endorsements. And while conservatives made some modest inroads in places like the Houston suburbs, they fell short in many of the most high-profile races in swing states like Pennsylvania – where Democrats swept several school boards while rejecting the culture war – as well as Iowa, Ohio and Virginia.

  So why did so many Moms for Liberty-endorsed candidates perform so poorly? For one thing, their agenda was simply too extreme for most voters outside of the deepest-red districts. National polling from earlier this year found that the majority of Americans oppose book bans, trust teachers to make curricular decisions, and think schools should teach the history of slavery, racism and segregation.

  This dynamic was reflected in the repudiation of figures like Teri Patrick – a school board candidate in West Des Moines, Iowa, who once fought to criminally charge a school district because its library had two books about LGBTQ+ issues. Patrick was endorsed by Moms for Liberty but crushed in the election, receiving a measly 9% of the vote

  .

Hopefully, these are all good omens. As the late Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O'Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” Let Democracy work its way up from the town to the county to the state and eventually the both houses of Congress and the White House itself.

And getting back to books, let’s conclude with a thought from that most beloved of all American writers, Mark Twain, whose Huckleberry Finn is high up on nearly every list of literature that must never be read by a child: 

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#963: Bamboozlement: A Pernicious Threat to Democracy

        Jonathan Swift (1667-17450

As an informal noun, “bamboozle” means, roughly, “a state of deception or mystification.” As a verb, it means “to deceive”, “delude,” “defraud,” or “to hoodwink.” Despite being a fun word to say, no one really knows anything definitive about its etymology. Even in good old Latin, the word bamboozle is just plain bamboozle. The breathtakingly brilliant Anglo-Irish satiric clergyman Jonathan Swift (best-known for Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal wrote a 1710 essay called "The Continual Corruption of our English Tongue," In this brief piece, he described the word "bamboozle" as one of the words that were in his opinion, "corroding, if not destroying, the English language" In other words, although he had a sense for what it meant, he hadn’t the slightest idea of its linguistic origin. Swift was wrong in his assertion that within a decade or two, the term would completely disappear from human speech.  I mean, here we are, 313 years later, and it is still in use

Anyone who has ever read Twain’s Tom Sawyer will remember the scene in which young Tom bamboozled his friends into whitewashing his Aunt Polly’s fence.  Who isn’t aware of history’s greatest bamboozlers, Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff?  In order for bamboozlers to succeed, there must be a steady supply of cretins, naifs, and babes-in-the-woods ready and willing to believe that there is reality in “something for nothing.”

Of late, bamboozlement has become a singularly important ingredient in partisan politics.  Three-quarter truths and outright lies have increasingly become the fuel upon which authoritarian politics thrives.  Don’t get me wrong: whoppers and semi-lies have played an important  part in campaigns and elections almost since the beginning of our history. One of the filthiest was  the presidential election of 1884, when Democrats freely used a doozy of a nickname against the Republican candidate, James G. Blaine - former Representative, Senator and twice Secretary of State under two Presidents: Blaine, Blaine: The Continental liar from the State of Maine.  Blaine wound up losing by a mere 1,047 votes to New York Governor Grover Cleveland . . . up until today, the only POTUS to win two non-consecutive terms. 

One of the first people to recognize just how dangerous bamboozlement was to democracy was the late polymath (astronomer, exobiologist, novelist and science popularizer) Carl Sagan (1934-1996) who, in one of his last books, The Demon Haunted World: Science as a  Candle In the Dark” wrote:

                      Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

   “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

Now mind you, Dr. Sagan wrote this more than a quarter-century ago. I guess one could add to his already bulging c.v.: “Prophet and Seer.”  It’s not so much that he looked into a crystal ball and foresaw the malevolence of a Donald Trump, the almost geometric growth of bamboozlement in the public square, and the subsequent dumbing-down of a lost, and highly gullible citizenry.  Rather, he was extrapolating just how far a baleful narcissist in the digital era, armed with the ability to reach the masses, could complicate and affect the ability of the hoi polloi to ferret out fact from fiction and science from witchcraft. For as sure as most of us are that G-d made little green apples, this is precisely what Donald Trump and his MAGA acolytes have done. I mean, who in their right mind would ever have believed that bleach or the anti-malarial drug Hydroxychloroquine were certain cures for COVID-19, or that the biggest enemies of the nation were “Communist, Fascist, LGBT” and immigrants minorities? And what’s even worse - far, far worse - is that the bamboozlement is so deep and pervasive that anyone attempting to speak “truth to power” is ignored, derided or threatened with future retaliation.

Who would ever have imagined a presidential candidate proclaiming to his supporters not “I am you leader,” or “I am your champion,” but “I AM YOUR RETRIBUTION!”? Speaking before a Veteran’s Day gathering in New Haven just the other day, the FPOTUS said that in his next administration “We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country . . . . the real threat is not from the radical right. The real threat is from the radical left, and it’s growing every day.”

The former president and First Bamboozler’s chilling rhetoric — and use of “vermin” in particular — set off fresh comparisons between him and the fascist dictators of the 1940s in some media outlets and even from President Biden’s camp. “Donald Trump parroted the autocratic language of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, two dictators many US veterans gave their lives fighting, in order to defeat exactly the kind of un-American ideas Trump now champions, campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa said in a statement.

It’s true that Trump has adopted the rhetorical strategies of some of the most reviled dictators. He dehumanizes his political enemies, has discredited the legal, political and electoral system, has demonized the press and has targeted vulnerable members of society, minorities and immigrants, as scapegoats. Like other strongmen, he presents himself as a persecuted savior of a disenfranchised sector of society that sees its traditional values and mores as under attack.

(Do keep in mind that the Bamboozle - on right-wing blogs and networks as well as slickly-produced TV ads - has performed such a total “mind meld” on a vast segment of the public, that 69 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters believe that Biden’s 2020 win was not legitimate, a slight increase from 63 percent earlier this year and through last fall.

We’ve all run into the bamboozled at one time or another. They are the ones who proclaim flat-out lies that seem to be from a single script:

• “President Trump is victim to the biggest political witch hunt in American history.”

• “Under Trump, America was more prosperous, safer and well-respected in the world than it is today under Biden.”

• “Donald Trump had his 2020 victory stolen from him.”

• “Joe Biden is senile and has accomplished nothing; he is the most corrupt president in all our history.”

• “Donald Trump did more for Israel than any other president.”

It’s terribly difficult to disabuse folks like these from believing all the lies they’ve had pumped into their systems. One suggestion I have is making sure you contribute to candidates who don’t engage in “victim talk,” who do their best to bring people together and promote democracy.  Also, keep a couple of links at hand to check out anything you believe is a lie: among my particular favorites are Snopes. Fact Checker, the Washington Post, Factcheck.org and Politifact.  These are all sound, unbiased sites that practice real journalism.

 Carl Sagan was right: “Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#962: ס'איז שװער צו זײַן אַ ייִד ("It's Hard to Be a Jew")

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Although it is rather simple to translate the title of this essay from Yiddish to English, its meaning can likely only be understood on an emotional level by what we Jews refer to as “MOT,” - i.e. “A member of the tribe.” Translated into French (C'est dur d'être juif), Spanish Es difícil ser judío) or even German (Es ist schwer, Jude zu sein), the expression loses the cultural angst, the shrug-of-the-shoulders fatalism that pervades the original. In English, French, Spanish, German or any other language, the expression is only “understood” as a mere translation of words . . . a matter for the cerebellum. In Yiddish, it is best translated by what we MOTs called די קישקע - “the guts.”

                               Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra

Historically, Jewish literature is filled with the kind of fatalism that is best comprehended in the guts, rather than the frontal lobes, which make expressive language possible. Jewish fatalism is perhaps best expressed by that most distinguished of rabbinic commentators and poets, Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089-1167) who wrote: “If I started out selling candles/the sun would never go down.  If I started selling funeral shrouds/people would stop dying. If I went into the arms trade/ universal peace would break out.” 

Got it?

Although rabbis, scholars and writers of every stripe have long attempted to explain Jewish fatalism and the ongoing historic nature of anti-Semitism,  no one has truly succeeded; it is just a fact of life.  And now, as the modern State of Israel and Hamas, a terrorist group fueled by its ghoulish 7th century theocracy go-toe-to-toe with one another in war, those who know little - if anything - about history and clash between theocracy and Democracy have chosen to take sides with “the Palestinians” (who historically, don’t really exist) over the Israelis (who, for most of history were the ones referred to as "Palestinians”).  The Gaza Strip is ruled not by a government, but by a terrorist group called Hamas, which is an acronym for Harakat – Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya – or "Islamic Resistance Movement.  In Arabic, hamas (حماسة) also means “zeal,” “fervor” or “ardor,” which just about says it all. 

The religious “zeal” of the Islamic Resistance Movement has as much to do with the murderous October 7 attack on Israel, as does the more than half-century occupation of Gaza by the Israelis.  Truth to tell missiles have been raining down on Jewish Gaza-border towns and kibbutzim  on a regular basis for years and years.  It’s just that the October 7th attack/invasion was on such a massive scale and that the Netanyahu government was caught with its pants down . . . largely concerning itself with political issues affecting the P.M.’s ability to keep his right flank satisfied and himself out of the courtroom where he faces charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate scandals involving powerful media moguls and wealthy associates.

By the end of the day (October 7, 2023), Israel declared war on Hamas, thus beginning its massive assault on Gaza. Today, nearly 37 days into the war, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have killed more than 10,000 people; of these, the majority are civilians. Food, water and fuel have been embargoed; surgeons in Gaza City are performing operations and delivering newborns by flashlight, because there simply is no electricity. And all across the world, people are condemning Israel for its “heartless excesses” and demanding an immediate cease-fire. The chances of this happening are slim at best; Hamas would immediately get back to restoring its weaponry and fortifying its many subterranean encampments. Israeli military leaders have no interest in a case-fire; not due to a love for killing Palestinian civilians or insensitivity towards saving and repatriating the hundreds of civilians kidnapped by Hamas.

In Hebrew, one would say that the Israelis - and Jews worldwide - are caught בין הפטיש והסדן - literally, “between the hammer and the anvil” . . . more commonly, “between a rock and a hard place.” On the one hand, almost all will admit that Israel, a sovereign state with a democratically-elected government, has every right to defend itself against heavily-armed terrorists whose rai·son d'ê·tre is the annihilation and utter dismemberment of Israel and the Jewish people from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. On the other, Israel’s response to Hamas’ deadly - and ongoing - invasion is both deeply repellant and repugnant. But what can the Israelis do? To a growing number of anti-Semites, and-Zionists, the answer is simple: “Just die! Leave the Palestinians alone. Stop your intended act of genocide!”

On the other side of the aisle, there are ultra-conservatives coming out of the cracks urging that “all Palestinians should be killed,” or urged the banning of all pro-Palestinian groups on college campuses for offering “material support” to terrorists. The rise in supporting Palestinians and attacking Israelis and Jews in general is being both seen and heard in both Europe and South America. Indeed, ס'איז שװער צו זײַן אַ ייִד “It’s hard to be a Jew.” Recently, both the Trump-supporting Fox entertainer Sean Hannity and the left-leaning U.K. talk show host Piers Morgan have interviewed Mosab Hassan Yousef, the disowned son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef.

In both interviews, Yousef., who was long ago dubbed the“Green Prince” (also the title of a 2014 documentary based on his autobiography) for his efforts to help the Shin Bet (the Israeli security agency) thwart terror attacks during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. In both interviews, Yousef (a “marked man” who now lives in San Diego), predicted that once Israel removes Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip as it has vowed to do following the October 7 terror onslaught, Palestinian residents would celebrate and thank Israel for ending their oppression and “lust for power.” Contrasting 21st century Israel and Hamas “which possesses a 7th century mentality,” Yousef went on to describe the two sides in saying: “. . . the gap is very huge. Hamas represents chaos. This is where they thrive. Israel represents order; democracy – Hence those are the two opposite extremes that have been clashing,"

Like many Jews, it truly hurts, bothers and worries me that Israel has taken such savage reprisals against the people of Gaza.  Yes, I support Israel’s right to defend itself and its citizens by going after and eliminating the murderers of Hamas.  And yet, I feel like that parent who chastises the child by saying “But we expect more of you.”

So what is to be done and how can we get across to the growing masses of those who support the “poor oppressed Palestinians” against the “genocidal Israelis?”

One possible answer is to teach history; to open the minds, hearts and souls of those who protest in the streets with a handful of crucial facts to ponder.  The other day, my friend Herb Stoller forwarded me the following video from an unknown Yemini under the title of “Hypocrisy for ‘Pro-Palestinians.”  It just about says it all:

All I can get is that those who whole-heartedly support the Palestinians against the military might of the Israelis, ponder what this young man has to teach . . . and learn a bit of history. It just might save the world from the planet’s most catastrophic collision.

Not only is it “hard to be a Jew”; it is doubly difficult to be an intelligent human being.

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#961: So You Tell Me: Why Do They Hate Us?

I have received various incarnations of this anonymous piece from several friends over the past week or so. Many thanks to Dr. Harvey Schiff and my longtime California friend Joseph Lambert (who sees things so clearly . . . just what one might expect from an Ophthalmologist!) for sending it my way. So far as I know, this piece started making its way around the Internet as early as 2015. There are a couple of factual errors in the listing of names and several medications, which could indicate that parts of this piece were written more than 50-60 years ago; as but one example, Salvarsan hasn’t been used for syphilis since the discovery of penicillin by Dr. Alexander Fleming in the late 1920s. It turned out that penicillin was far less toxic and far more efficacious than Salvarsan.

So far as “Meyer M. Treinkman” a careful jaunt through the major Internet search engines failed to identify anyone with this name. The Social Security Death Index identified one “Meyer M. Treinkman” having died in Miami Beach, Florida on November 15, 1987 at age 93. Also, as you read through this piece, you will note some errors and omissions I have attempted to true up.

Regardless of potential flaws and questions, the essential truth of this essay remains . . . it is well worth a read.

 A JEWISH BOYCOTT

A short time ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the Muslim World to boycott anything and everything that originates with the Jewish people.

In response, Meyer M. Treinkman, a pharmacist, out of the kindness of his heart, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows:

"Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner.

"A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube.

Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocain, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil. (n.b.:  Other sources show that  both Procaine and Novocain were the invention not of Widal and Weil, but the non-Jewish German Chemist Alfred Einhorn in 1905. The name of Georges-Fernand Widal [1862-1929], however, is associated with the Widal Test, a diagnostic test for typhoid fever developed in 1896.. 

If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege.

Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew, Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate.

Arabs must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew.

Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the “Schick" reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick.

 "Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, the work of Jewish Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram.

 They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk. (n.b.: Another proof that the origin of this essay is far older than one might think is the omission of Albert Sabin [1906-1993] the inventor of the oral polio vaccine which all but eliminated the disease.)

"Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman (Selman Waksman), invented the wonder drug against this killing disease.

Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict, or the lung specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts. (n.b. There is no record of either of these doctors being famous dermatological researchers.)

"In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott."

Oh, and by the way, don't call for a doctor on your cell phone because the cell phone was invented in Israel by a Jewish engineer.

Meanwhile I ask, what medical contributions to the world have the Muslims made?"

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population.  (n.b. As of 2023, there are an estimated 1,900,000,000; that is ONE BILLION NINE HUNDRED MILLION, or 26% of the world’s population.) 

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature: 1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace - 1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat

1990 - Elias James Corey

1994 - Yaser Arafat:

1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics:(zero)

Physics: (zero)

Medicine: 1960 - Peter Brian Medawar

1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. (n.b. In 2023, there are approximately 16.1 million Jews in the world; this is still about 0,02% of the world’s population.)

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:1910 - Paul Heyse

1927 - Henri Bergson

1958 - Boris Pasternak

1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon

1966 - Nelly Sachs

1976 - Saul Bellow

1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer

1981 - Elias Canetti

1987 - Joseph Brodsky

1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace: 1911 - Alfred Fried

1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser

1968 - Rene Cassin

1973 - Henry Kissinger

1978 - Menachem Begin

1986 - Elie Wiesel

1994 - Shimon Peres

1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics: 1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer

1906 - Henri Moissan

1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson

1908 - Gabriel Lippmann

1910 - Otto Wallach

1915 - Richard Willstaetter

1918 - Fritz Haber

1921 - Albert Einstein

1922 - Niels Bohr

1925 - James Franck

1925 - Gustav Hertz

1943 - Gustav Stern

1943 - George Charles de Hevesy

1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi

1952 - Felix Bloch

1954 - Max Born

1958 - Igor Tamm

1959 - Emilio Segre

1960 - Donald A. Glaser

1961 - Robert Hofstadter

1961 - Melvin Calvin

1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau

1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz

1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman

1965 - Julian Schwinger

1969 - Murray Gell-Mann

1971 - Dennis Gabor

1972 - William Howard Stein

1973 - Brian David Josephson

1975 - Benjamin Mottleson

1976 - Burton Richter

1977 - Ilya Prigogine

1978 - Arno Allan Penzias

1978 - Peter L Kapitza

1979 - Stephen Weinberg

1979 - Sheldon Glashow

1979 - Herbert Charles Brown

1980 - Paul Berg

1980 - Walter Gilbert

1981 - Roald Hoffmann

1982 - Aaron Klug

1985 - Albert A. Hauptman

1985 - Jerome Karle

1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach

1988 - Robert Huber

1988 - Leon Lederman

1988 - Melvin Schwartz

1988 - Jack Steinberger

1989 - Sidney Altman

1990 - Jerome Friedman

1992 - Rudolph Marcus

1995 - Martin Perl

2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson

1971 - Simon Kuznets

1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow

1975 - Leonid Kantorovich

1976 - Milton Friedman

1978 - Herbert A. Simon

1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein

1985 - Franco Modigliani

1987 - Robert M. Solow

1990 - Harry Markowitz

1990 - Merton Miller

1992 - Gary Becker

1993 - Robert Fogel

 (n.b. The following 24 names should be added to this list:

•  John Harsanyi  (1994)

• Reinhard Selten  (1994)

• Robert Merton (1997)

• Myron Scholes (1997)

• George Akerlof  (2001)

• Joseph Stiglitz  (2001)

• Daniel Kahneman  (2002)

• Robert Aumann  (2005)

• Leonid (Leo) Hurwicz  (2007)

• Eric Maskin (2007)

• Roger Myerson  (2007)

• Paul Krugman  (2008)

• Elinor Ostrom  (2009)

• Peter Diamond (2010)

• Alvin Roth  (2012)

• Oliver Hart  (2016)

• Richard Thaler  (2017)

• William Nordhaus  (2018)

• Michael Kremer (2019)

• Paul Milgrom (2020)

• Joshua Angrist (2021)

• Ben Bernanke (2022)

• Douglas Diamond (2022)

• Claudia Goldin (2023)

Medicine:1908 - Elie Metchnikoff

1908 - Paul Erlich

1914 - Robert Barany

1922 - Otto Meyerhof

1930 - Karl Landsteiner

1931 - Otto Warburg

1936 - Otto Loewi

1944 - Joseph Erlanger

1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser

1945 - Ernst Boris Chain

1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller

1950 - Tadeus Reichstein

1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman

1953 - Hans Krebs

1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann

1958 - Joshua Lederberg

1959 - Arthur Kornberg

1964 - Konrad Bloch

1965 - Francois Jacob

1965 - Andre Lwoff

1967 - George Wald

1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg

1969 - Salvador Luria

1970 - Julius Axelrod

1970 - Sir Bernard Katz

1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman

1975 - Howard Martin Temin

1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg

1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow

1978 - Daniel Nathans

1980 - Baruj Benacerraf

1984 - Cesar Milstein

1985 - Michael Stuart Brown

1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein

1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]

1988 - Gertrude Elion

1989 - Harold Varmus

1991 - Erwin Neher

1991 - Bert Sakmann

1993 - Richard J. Roberts

1993 - Phillip Sharp

1994 - Alfred Gilman

1995 - Edward B. Lewis

1996- Lu RoseIacovino

TOTAL: 153!

The Jews are NOT promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non-Muslims.

The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants.

There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church.

There is NOT a single Jew who protests by killing people. The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel 's part, the following two sentences really say it all:

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel."

Benjamin Netanyahu: General Eisenhower warned us. It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect: 'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened'

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred.

It is not removed as yet . However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now 78 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.

Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people. Perhaps you'll be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world - or not....

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States?

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone 

#960: Meet the Johnsons: It's Not a Sitcom

                 Most of the Cast of “Meet the Johnsons”

One of the great advantages (and disadvantages) of living in a world enswathed in Internet technology is how even the most relatively anonymous person can, within a matter of hours, become as well-known as Benjamin Franklin or F. Scott Fitzgerald.  For those possessing but a scintilla of cyber competence, we have Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Openverse and You.com to act as our personal Library of Congress.  To paraphrase the old Westinghouse all-news-all-the-time tagline, “You give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world.”

Case in point: less than 72 hours ago, outside of his Benton, Louisiana neighborhood, the people in his church or the constituents in his 4th District House seat had ever heard of the newly-elected House Speaker Mike Johnson. Upon first televised glance - and comparing him visually to the oft-uncoated “Gym” Jordan, he seemed like a pretty normal fellow: well-tailored, well-coifed, bespectacled, and about as benign as Clark Kent. The first published photos of his wife and 4 children, (minus his “adopted” African American son who, for reasons not yet known, was “expunged” from his official biography years ago), made them look like a “ready for prime time” super-photogenic family.

But alas, to paraphrase the Hebrew Bible (1 Samuel 16:7), Looks can be deceiving. To be both fair and honest, I have never met nor interviewed Speaker Johnson. Heck a huge percentage of elected officials on Capitol Hill (except, perhaps, his colleagues on House Judiciary or Armed Services) had to either check out his Congressional Website or find him on Wikipedia. It turns out that his relative anonymity among the 219 members of the House Republican caucus turned out to be beneficial; flying beneath the clouds (unlike Reps. Matt Gaetz, Gym Jordan, George Santos, Steve Scalise,  or Marjorie Taylor Green, to name but a few) meant that he had few - if any - hardcore enemies. Considering the amount of acrimony and waspishness that has been on display throughout the three-week Speaker imbroglio, Johnson’s relative equanimity must have seemed to like a gift from on high.

To use the words “a gift from on high” when referring to Speaker (and Mrs.) Johnson is no mere literary device; rather, it is purely intentional. For without question, no inhabitant of the Speaker’s Office has ever been as thoroughly besotted with the word of G-d than its newest occupant. Johnson has long described himself as “first and foremost a Christian.” An evangelical of the Southern Baptist stripe, Johnson has said: "My faith informs everything I do.” We should all prepare ourselves for a lot of “G-d speak” from the Speaker in the days, weeks and months to come. In his very first address to the House, Speaker Johnson got off to a start filled to overflowing with the rhetoric of religious fundamentalism: “I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a manner like this. I believe that scripture, the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you, all of us, and I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment in this time. This is my belief. I believe that each one of us has a huge responsibility today to use the gifts that God has given us to serve.”

If Mike Johnson was the very best person the Republican caucus could agree on to become Speaker of the House, it scares the living bejesus out of me. As a practicing traditional Jew (who also has a pretty well-developed sense of humor), I cannot feel comfortable putting the Speaker’s gavel - the very gavel wielded by the likes of Joseph “Czar” Cannon, Sam Rayburn, Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, and Nancy Pelosi - into the hands of an election-denying, Christian Nationalist like Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Coming from a tribe that has long gone out of its way to stay out of the business of converting others to its religious weltanschauung (worldview), I find myself beset with insomnia over the thought of a Speaker - the person 2nd in line to the Presidency - who religious creed is based on saving my soul . . . or else.

Let’s take a look at what our new Speaker supports and where he expects to lead us.

• In a 2017 House Judiciary Committee meeting, Johnson argued that Roe v. Wade made it necessary to cut social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid because abortion reduced the labor force and thus damaged the economy.

  Johnson has co-sponsored bills attempting to ban abortion nationwide, such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children From Late-Term Abortions Act, and the Heartbeat Protection Act of 2021. All three bills would impose criminal penalties, including potential prison terms of up to five years, upon doctors who perform abortions.

• In 2015, Johnson blamed abortions and the "breakup [of] the nuclear family" for school shootings, saying, "when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it's expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters."

• In 2018, he was involved in GOP efforts to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, introducing legislation to do so. 

• In 2020, Johnson signed an amicus brief alongside more than 100 House Republicans supporting a Texas lawsuit that aimed to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Johnson also voted to object to the election results in both Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, 2021. 

• Johnson has been a long-term, outspoken opponent of LGBT rights. He has called homosexuality "sinful" and "destructive" and argued that support for LGBT equality would lead to support for pedophilia and bestiality, and that sex for any other purpose than procreation between a lawfully married man and woman should be considered a crime.

• Johnson previously worked as senior attorney and spokesperson for Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, a Southern Poverty Law Center–designated hate group that pushes its far-right agenda through the courts.

• On May 19, 2021, Johnson and all other seven Republican House leaders in the 117th Congress voted against establishing a national commission to investigate the January 6, 2021, storming of the United States Capitol.

• During a town hall in 2017, Johnson said that he believed that Earth's climate was changing, but questioned the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by humans.

  Under Johnson, the Republican Study Committee in 2019 called Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal the "Greedy New Steal", called "wind and solar" "the most inefficient energy sources we have", and claimed that living near wind turbines could cause "depression and cognitive dysfunction".

• Johnson came to some prominence in the late 1990s when he and his wife appeared on television to promote new laws in Louisiana allowing covenant marriages, under which divorce is much more difficult to obtain than in no-fault divorce. In 2005, Johnson appeared on ABC's Good Morning America to promote covenant marriages, saying, "I'm a big proponent of marriage and fidelity and all the things that go with it".

• In 2016, Johnson delivered a sermon that called the teaching of evolution one of the causes of mass shootings: "People say, 'How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?' Because we've taught a whole generation—a couple generations now—of Americans, that there's no right or wrong, that it's about survival of the fittest, and you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there's nobody sacred to whom it's owed.

• In a one-on-one interview with Sean Hannity this past Thursday, just the mass murder in Lewiston, Maine,  Speaker  Johnson made an old Republican line new again, claiming that it’s not guns that kill people—it’s their hearts. “This is not the time to be talking about legislation.”  

If this were not enough, there is Mrs. Speaker Johnson, Kelly. a mental health counselor who, along with her husband, has a popular podcast called ”Truth be Told” With Mike and Kelly Johnson. You won’t find it on the top podcast charts — they haven’t managed to hit the top 100 in the “Religion & Spirituality” section of Apple Podcasts, where it’s designated due to its emphasis on their evangelical Christian beliefs. The project is a blend of political and religious analysis, occasionally featuring guests, that illuminates Johnson’s faith-driven views on governance — and is sure to inform how he approaches his new role.

After a career as a teacher, Kelly Johnson to working as a pastoral counselor at “Onward Christian Counseling Services” where she serves as founder and president. The practice provides religious-based individual, marriage and family counseling to people across Louisiana.  Onward Christian Counseling Services is grounded in the belief that sex is offensive to God if it is not between a man and a woman married to each other. It puts being gay, bisexual or transgender in the same category as someone who has sex with animals or family members, calling all of these examples of “sexual immorality.”  “We believe and the Bible teaches that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex, is sinful and offensive to God,” says the eight-page business document. (Interestingly, over the past several days, the counseling services’ website has become subscription only.)

Mike Johnson, I am sorry to report, is going to be one of the few Speakers in history who will have to get on-the-job training while leading and shaping the House.  Unlike recent speakers like Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner, Mr. Johnson has no deep ties or muscular network of allies across the country. As such, he lacks one of the most important strengths one looks for in a Speaker: an ability to raise vast sums of money. Say what you want about Kevin McCarthy, he is a six-foot tall ATM when it comes to putting the bite on people. There is nothing in Mike Johnson’s career history to suggest that he is in this league. And with the number of red seats open to question in the 2024 elections, money is going to be key.

So welcome to the world of Speaker and Mrs. Mike Johnson.  While it is definitely not going to be a sitcom, it will likely bring tears to the eyes of the American Eagle.

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone

#959: Here Comes Mr. Jordan

Yes, I know: the title of this piece should, in reality, be There Goes” (not “Here Comes”) Mr. Jordan. Truth to tell, when I first started mulling over this week’s op-ed, Ohio Rep. “Gym” Jordan יש"ו  (a Hebrew acronym pronounced y’mach sh’mo v’zikro and meaning “may his name and memory be blotted out” . . . in modern Latin. it’s Damnatio memoriae, “condemnation of memory”), was still in the race for Speaker of the House. The House went through 3 votes this past week, with Gym, who could afford having no more than 4 of his Republican colleagues voting against him if  he were to have any hope of snaring the gavel.  As things turned out, he kept losing more Republican votes in each go-round until by vote number three, he managed to lose the confidence - if not affection - of fully 25 of his colleagues.  In so doing, Mr. Jordan managed to enter the history books by losing more votes from his own party than any Speaker candidate in more than 100 years. And mind you, all this occurred despite Mr. Jordan having received the public endorsement of the FPOTUS, Donald J. Trump.

So what’s this Here Comes Mr. Jordan all about?  Well, first and foremost, it’s the title of a sparkling 1941 Columbia comedy/fantasy/romance starring Robert Montgomery as boxer Joe Pendleton (aka “The Flying Pug) who, flying off to his next bout, appears to have died when his plane crashes while en route.  Joe’s soul is retrieved by 7013 (played by Edward Everett Horton), an officious angel who assumed that Joe could not have survived the crash. Joe's manager, Max "Pop" Corkle (James Gleason), has his body cremated. In the afterlife, the records show that the kind-hearted Joe’s death was a mistake; he was supposed to live for another 50 years. 7013’s superior, Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains) , confirms this, but since there is no more body, Joe will have to take over a newly dead corpse. Jordan explains that a body is just something that is worn, like an overcoat; inside, Joe will still be himself. Joe insists that it be someone in good physical shape, because he wants to continue his boxing career.

After Joe turns down several "candidates", Jordan takes him to see the body of a crooked, extremely wealthy banker and investor named Bruce Farnsworth, who has just been drugged and drowned in a bathtub by his wife and his secretary. Joe is reluctant to take over a life so unlike his previous one, but eventually changes his mind and agrees to take over Farnsworth's body.  There’s a lot more to the story including a murder mystery, Joe’s return to the boxing ring and Joe’s beloved saxophone. Perhaps you may want to see it for yourself. (BTW, Here Comes Mr. Jordan received Academy Award nominations for best picture, best director best actor, and best supporting actor and won for best screenplay and best story.)  

In truth then, this essay would have been better served had it been entitled There Goes Mr. Jordan, for undoubtedly Gym Jordan’s career on Capitol Hill is, from this point on, going to be but a wisp of what it was a mere 10 days ago. Never again will he even dream of scaling any Congressional heights. The reasons for his embarrassing defeat (for which sane people should give thanks) are many-fold. Most importantly, during his 16 years in the House, Congress has yet to pass a single bill Gym Jordan wrote. Then too, he one of the most disliked people on Capitol Hill; to his colleagues, he is nothing more than a bully without a single guiding principle to his name. And oh yes, he is a terrible - and I mean lackluster to the max - fundraiser . . . a prime responsibility for any Speaker. 

Make no mistake  about it: now that Jordan has been hurled onto the trash heap of American political history, Congress - and America’s very future - are in peril.  Without a properly elected Speaker, Congress (meaning both the House and Senate) are incapable of addressing - let alone seriously dealing with - America’s most pressing issues . . . such as funding wars in both Israel and Ukraine, keeping the government from shutting down, and virtually anything that deals with appropriations. Oh  sure, the Republicans and their 4-vote “majority” can continue holding hearings on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the possible impeachment of the POTUS . . . which in the real world  amount to far, far less than a hill of political beans.

 At the moment, there are upwards of 9 Congressional Republicans being considered for the speakership:

• Tom Emmer (Minnesota)

• Austin Scott (Georgia)

• Byron Donalds (Florida)

• Kevin Hern (Oklahoma)

• Jody C. Arrington (Texas)

• Jack Bergman (Michigan)

• MIke Johnson (Louisiana)

• Pete Sessions (Texas)

• Dan Meuser (Pennsylvania
  

A brief look through the nine’s websites will show that all are Trump acolytes, that 7 of the 9 (with the exception of Scott and Emmer) voted against accepting Joe Biden’s victory in the 2022 presidential election. All, with the exception of Mr. Donalds of Florida, are White males, are pro-gun, anti-WOKE and, when it comes to the FPOTUS, absolutely spineless. Several are leaders of the “Freedom Caucus,” founded by the aforementioned Jim Jordan, and the majority of whom are against working together with Democrats on virtually anything and everything.

In the 3 votes for Speaker of the House over the past week, the person claiming the greatest number of votes was, not surprisingly, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. This is not to say that he will ever become Speaker in a House controlled (even by 4 votes) by Republicans, but rather that he leads a totally unified party. It is becoming abundantly clear with each passing day that Jeffries’ Democrats are not only speaking with one voice, but that they actually have an agreed-upon political platform. This is beginning to sink in on the Republican members of the House who, by comparison to their Democratic colleagues, are known for what they are against - like Social Security, Medicare, Student Loan Forgiveness, Covid-19 vaccines, gun safety measures and aid to Israel and the Ukraine, than what they are for: tax cuts for the hyper-wealthy, the banning of books in public school libraries, anti-immigrant legislation, and turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism. And for what?  Certainly not for the purpose of “Making America Great Again.”  With each passing week and each dropped pass, it seems that what the majority of Republicans are after is maintaining good standing with their party leader, the FPOTUS and continuing to be recipients of the toxic crumbs he doles out for obedience at best, silence at worst. 

Needless to say, this is looking pretty damn embarrassing for the Republicans and does not bode well for 2024. Not that long ago, The COP stood for smaller government, lower taxes and greater individual liberty. Sort of like the Republicanism of the late actor Robert Montgomery, the star of “Here Comes Mr. Jordan.” Montgomery, (1904-1981), the well-born son of a corporate executive, quit Hollywood when Dwight Eisenhower asked him to join his administration in order to become his political "image consultant." He thus created a new position in the world of politics. (BTW: Political historians have often speculated that had Montgomery been Richard Nixon’s media consultant in 1960, JFK would never have been elected.)  It is interesting to speculate precisely which party Montgomery (the father of Elizabeth, the future star of “Bewitched”) would have assisted in the age of Donald Trump, Gym Jordan, Matt Gaetz et al. One gets the feeling that even a star of his magnitude couldn’t have done a damned thing.

Copyright©2023 Kurt Franklin Stone